Paving booming activities along the river

Paving booming activities along the river:

The case of City of Chicago Riverwalk, Illinois

Abstract

People seem quite appreciate the unique space along the riverwalk in downtown Chicago and all the proper activities partly as a result from the design of the pavers or the textures people could contact with bodily or optically. The textures along the Riverwalk in downtown Chicago attribute different activities orderly and guide people’s intended behaviors(1). Pavers on the Riverwalk designed organized by Landscape Architect and presented in a tidy and neatly trait which consist of the paver. When there is no people, this space are just a piece of artwork along the river, but it literally offers functions for this space where people could have activities to spend their spare time. People follow textures being consist of pavers that could help them to achieve some certain activities, based on different moment, different pavers are also associated with different human uses(2). Through personal observation on site and researching resources collected online, those paving shows some unremarkable perspectives for us to understand how they contribute people’s activities and movement along the riverwalk. Compared to world-famous projects with aesthetic of the public, the Riverwalk has been building up the unique identification of a place in Chicago.

Chicago Riverwalk: Paving serves multipurpose.

When people being in the first Room of Riverwalk—Marina Plaza, the space is divided by two parts, dining area and walking area where close to the riverside. The pavers on the dining area is a bit higher than walking area, which is connected by three steps and rougher the pavers on the dining area than the walk way. Those who have food on the dining area will not be attracted attention by walkers passing through the riverwalk due to the large area of rough, dark colored dining space comparing to elsewhere. Walkers and runners will not easily change their continuous routes on the paving where close to the riverside. People sitting around the table peacefully even though some stains by the garbage can remained on the dark colored pavers, the rough surface of textures fix the stains in the paving itself, it can not be noticed easily unless you always look down, very messy and wetly surface. The shadow of shade trees also make contribution to convey people’s attention from the pavers. People care more about the experience on a site rather than what results in this experience. The rough and dark colored pavers not only unite people’s stay, but also hide some flaw of clean (3). The paver gets to let people make their decisions for next movement, in other words, activities happened here. While somehow these rugged surface has an undesirable consequence that it keeps the pavers humid, which means it allows the rainwater stay longer than other textures. During raining time, the rainwater fills up the sunk little area in the paving, almost no people are willing to stay here and people have showed their preference of water splash about different pavings on dining area and riverfront area. They could accept that river water splash on the textures of paving on the side of riverfront, but they are not able to accept the water stain around the dining area, so using the darker paving that would conceal it. Although the dining area situates in a sunless space, there is no slice of feeling of gloomy, because a certain amount of diners’ horizon who sit by the benches focus on the walkers on the brighter paving of riverside, brightness sticks with darkness, the high benches connect the space forcefully in terms of space uses. The textures on the bench and the paving near the riverfront have similar tactile feeling and colors, adding up with the panoramas of the river and buildings, that makes people who sit on the bench still being a part of the riverwalk rather than being isolated and this provide an unique opportunity that people could enjoy the whole building facade opposite the river. While compared to High Line Park in New York to illustrate different panoramas in an ambulatory way(4) and the sequence of movement has been choreographed according to the design of paving in the park, the view provided by Riverwalk is more straightforward, the exposed structures of building with river, all the view provided here that benefits from gradually varied textures of paving from the dining area down to the riverside. The new curb plank in High Line park designed as multipurpose paving for people to use and appreciate, the blending or bleeding hard paving with plant provokes people to think about the relationships between artificial and natural, this strong texture contrast let visitors have its first impression on the park. People strolling on the paving with thickets, whole New York city melt with High Line park has become an advertisement symbol. As for the Chicago Riverwalk, when the beach colored paving are being present in all sorts of media, the realization of Riverwalk has been changing from sludge texture of riverfront to extreme clean surface texture. Outer people would not be inclined to take a look at it due to the unpleasant textures of sludge left on the riverside (5), but now paving as a visual appearance are increasing the aesthetic quality of people’s live. Sometimes, the media coverage about the Riverwalk related to paving will mislead the real story of paving’s utility, the public’s perception for riverwalk paving as a hard material, especially on some advertisement website, not a proper one for sitting together, hangout after working, the paving serve as an attachment. But the truth along the riverside is exactly the contrary, there is not a large amount of people sitting inside the Dome, the frequency is quite low according to my observation. People still want to have a personal experience along the Chicago River. The elders walk slowly along the edge, the couple sit around the clean paving, children like to touch the water.

On the other hand, the interval between each paving consist of the necessary texture for this area and it gives people a strong sense of walking direction and let people follow that line, which split it into two-way walk as well. The size of each paving unit scales size of the riverfront down to the scale of people. For example, the space made by chairs, bar stools and tables could follow the units of paving. All the street furnitures can take it as a placement reference, more importantly, it enhance people’s activities happening well-organized. In addition, the interval abides the construction basis— rigid pavement require expansion and control joints to allow for contraction and expansion due to temperature fluctuations(6). City of Chicago has a very distinct season transformation which will might tear down the structure of paving. The pavement joints play an important role in people’s safety and bring sense of safety to people, not like some projects which crack all over the site. Sealant between pavers function well for this consideration and it quite fits on the riverwalk paving. A secure site let people stay and stroll more often, which is consist of precast concrete forming system connecting the Riverwalk between the bridges. The project required to engineer and manufacture an additional 1,400 linear feet of cambered trusses. The trusses were used to build platforms on which the cambered bridge sections would be cast(7). The inner structure built determine the whole site trait quality that paving will convert the sense to the outer people.

Reference:

(1) Billie Ann Cheatum, Allison A.Hammond. Physical Activities for Improving Children’s Learning and Behavior, Chapter 9, pp.223. 2000

(2) Jared Green. “More Paver Power.” https://dirt.asla.org/2013/07/11/more-paver-power/

(3) “The Beauty of Choosing The Best Pavement.” http://www.willamettegraystone.com/pdf/choosingthebestpave.pdf.

(4) Jared Keller. “First Drafts: James Corner's High Line Park.” Jul 5, 2011.

(5)Eillie Anzilotti. “A Vision for a Chicago Unified by Rivers.” 0ct 18, 2016.

(6)Charles W. Harris, Nicholas T. Dines. Time-Saver Standards for Landscape Architecture, Second Edition.

(7) UFP CONCRETE FORMING SYSTEMS. http://www.ufpconcrete.com/en/blog/2016/november/chicago-riverwalk.aspx