"With the recent adoption of the Campus Master Plan, RISD has an important opportunity to transform its facilities and infrastructure. Sustainability is one of the guiding principles of this plan. RISD must engage our students, faculty, and staff while leveraging our culture of innovation and creativity to tackle the challenges we face. On a steep hill, adjacent to an historic riverfront, the RISD campus offers opportunities and challenges in an era of sea level rise and intense storms. This course creates the opportunity for students in all disciplines to directly engage with the planning of a sustainable campus for RISD. We will be asking how can we create a more environmentally, economically and socially sustainable campus. We will begin by understanding current best practices, then ask how to move beyond them. We will consider bold transformations and simple immediate actions, city-wide changes and small site constructions that we can build within the year. The course will involve research, discussion, guest speakers and design projects and critiques. Interdisciplinary group projects and individual work may address operations, communications as well as campus design. The group will develop one or more campus strategies, to be presented to invited critics and the administration. Each student will also develop a portion or detail of the initiative. "
Goals were designed to reform the campus regarding issues of sustainability on a number of levels. This particular project focused on improving cycling infrastructure at RISD and around Providence as a whole.
Protected bike lanes running through Providence would have the potential to transform the city, connecting the East Bay Bike Path, the Woonasquatucket River Greenway, and the Blackstone River Bikeway across college hill.
The Providence waterfront reimagined, free of motor traffic.
We propose the transformation of South Main Street from two lanes of one-way traffic to two-way travel. South Water Street (through Canal Street) will be the site of a bikeway and pedestrian greenscape.
The Future of South Water Street
