Home | Projects | Reference Center | About Us | Image Bank
Past Projects : 2004 - 2007 : Embrace Open Space
Embrace Open Space
The
Metropolitan Design Center welcomes you. We
are a research center at the University of Minnesota that studies
how communities can design their environments to be more sustainable
and livable. The design and planning of open space systems is
an important part of our work.
Bassett's Creek
Our website has information about how Twin Cities communities have worked to
create, protect, or restore open space systems while they continue to grow and
thrive. Bassett's Creek, one of the 10 treasures highlighted by the Embrace
Open Space campaign, has been the focus of several Design Center studies over
the past several years. Projects include a restoration plan for Fruen's
Woodland, along the creek, and a proposal for daylighting the creek from
its piped route under the Sumner
/ Glenwood neighborhoods of Minneapolis.
Several other projects on the Design Center website highlight open space as a community building system
In Your Own Backyard
- The Pleasure Creek brochure provides homeowners with information to enhance the habitat, water, and visual quality of their residential landscapes. This illustrated example is of a new suburban neighborhood.
In Your Neighborhood or Town
- A new project, Designing Small Urban Parks, is developing prototype design elements, scenarios, and guidelines for neighborhood parks and town squares to optimize their contribution to urban ecosystems as well as satisfy other social benefits. The final product will translate recent research findings on ecological and social aspects of open space into a user-friendly manual.
- The Community Redesign handbook summarizes eight local community planning efforts that highlight natural area and open space preservation principles.
- A collection of case study reports describes open space projects in urban and suburban communities: Farmington's prairie waterway; Phalen Creek and Trout Brook greenways in St. Paul; a highway redesign that preserves creek corridors in Chanhassen; and a design for reclaiming an abandoned gravel mine in Maple Grove.
In Your Metropolitan Area
- The Taking Notice: Green Spaces in Urbanized Settings project examined the green spaces of urban and inner-suburban communities of the Twin Cities through mapping, case studies, and study of key social and ecological issues.
- The Twin Cities landscape is a diverse mosaic of natural and cultural resources. The series of case study newsletters, An Urban Design Framework, demonstrates how northern, central, and southern communities in the Twin Cities can build open spaces that enhance the unique chracteristics of each place that connect to the Missississppi river. To see the big picture, check out Redefining the River Corridor and Corridors, Networks and Watersheds. If you live in the northern suburbs, look at The Sand Plain and Terrace Reach to find out more about open space opportunities where you live. If you live in the core cities, check out The Falls and Canyon Reach. If you live south of St. Paul, look at The Valley and Prairie Plain Reach
 |
1 Ralph Rapson Hall, 89 Church Street S.E., Minneapolis, MN 55455, |