B-Hive
B-Hive
Award of Merit
2023 APA Florida Project Award - Student Project
About this project
The Logan area of North Philadelphia is a residential neighborhood of approximately 1.5 square miles. Once a thriving, middle-class community centered around Wingohocking Creek, the area has suffered from disinvestment and decline due to a 1959 gas main pipe leak and explosion that forced many residents to relocate. Today, the area is home to 28,000 residents. It is predominately African American with household income just below the city median and a homeownership rate close to the city median. Environmental conditions create significant challenges at this site. The site includes an area where coal ash was used as fill—where it will be cost-prohibitive to include any uses except those with low foundation requirements. Given the contamination and disinvestment in the area, the main concern that our team focused on was: how to redevelop the site and bring people back to the area.
The central idea of the project is creating a B-HIVE for the Logan community- a Balanced, Healthy, Inclusive, Vibrant and Empowered community in Logan Triangle. The proposal centers around creating green spaces including an urban farm and restored creek, new affordable housing; and enhanced mobility and opportunity. The team decided collectively that before starting any construction on site, the site should be prepped so that the environmental constraints are removed. This will change people’s attitudes and behaviors toward the site which has been vacant for the past 20 years. Phase 0 of the proposal explores changing the attitudes and perceptions of people towards site and building capacity.
All plans for the Logan Triangle are created to blend back into the existing fabric rather than act as a stand-alone community. The recommendations are made while considering a broader context, including the entire Logan Neighborhood and what the Logan Community truly needs in the Logan Triangle.
Understanding specific recommendations blend into other phases, the team has a work to avoid a rigid structure representing the recommendations and the timeline for development. The recommendations and design are based on the understanding of planning aspects such as existing zoning, land use, history, demographics, community assets, existing mobility options, and sustainability, while creating a masterplan that addresses the surrounding context scale. Methods such as adaptive reuse, site design to capture natural wind, creating varying scales of housing and housing types, developing more open recreation space for everyone, and addressing the housing affordability issues in Logan Triangle by having market rate, affordable housing, and separate dedicated mix of senior housing. Understanding the surrounding student community, affordable microunits/ garage apartments are proposed for phase 1.
At each of the four phases, the team addressed the issue of Health, Equity and Housing. The project generated innovative ideas that have gained significant traction in the planning field and have the potential to be impactful if implemented. The process included four main stages: the evaluation of current conditions, the representation and mapping of data, the creation of design ideas, and the presentation of the planned site area. In conclusion, the B-HIVE project seeks to revitalize and reestablish the community.