Paseo Verde Project Benjamin A. Sotomayor Temple University Foundations of Facilities Management II Spring 2015

Earlier, this semester, I went with my facilities class, to visit ongoing construction atPaseo Verde, a community which my professor, Snezana Litvinovic has partook, with herfirm, in the design process of, for the Associacion de Puertoriquenos en Marcha, or the Philadelphia Puertocians en Marcha Association, APM, which (although mainly run by Puertorican working-class families, in North Philly) is used, as a public assistance programfor many working-class families, in North Philly, of low-income. From the look of some of these photos, the site, as you might have guessed, is located off the corner of the PGW.

Albeit, the site is located next to an eye sore, it has been designed with the purpose of maintaining sustainable, through a food-share program, community outreach,counseling, and rehabilitation programs, and low VOCs in the construction of the site, as well as the design of stormwater-capturing ”blue roofs”. As my professor has designed plans for further construction of Paseo Verde, APM has offered up an empty lot, located directly across from the gas works station, where she has drafted up a few adjoining clus-ters of apartment buildings (some with retail and community space) to fill up that lot. She also let us try our hands in pre-fabricating designs programs for these clusters.

Retail Space

Retail Space

Carpool Dropo�

Upper FloorDiagram

Ground FloorSite Plan

2-Bedroom Units

3-Bedroom Unit

1-Bedroom Units1-Bedroom Units

On-site parking

As seen, here, my professor has devised a site plan, in phases, of how the clustersat Paseo Verde will be built. At the bottom is a close-up of the two-bedroom units, which I had decided to program a design for, in AutoCAD, which can be seen at the right. Also shown areelevations of the shared cluster, with the different apartments.

Shown, here, are precedents of the design that I had programmed, based on apartment settings in TV shows that Iused to, and sometimes still, watch regularly. At the bottom are viewports, taken from SketchUp, of the interior of the two-bedroom unit.

Temple Campus

SEPTA RegionalRailStation

PublicSchool

Legend

Temple Campus

Retail/Healthcare

K-12 School

Railway Station

Industrial

1 km

Our site... is flanked off to the Southeastern corner of currently developed juristictions of Paseo Verde. Centrally located in North Philadelphia, our empty site is nestled between the TempleCampus, the Septa Regional Rail Station, a K-12 public school, retail shopping, dining, and healthcarepharmacies, as well as a metal factory, and the PGW or PECO building - all within a single kilometerradius.

As you can tell, there were many ammenities we discovered that were near our site atPaseo Verde. However, there were things we did not like about the site, which any lack ofammenities did not account for. We did not like that there seemed to be a lot of free spaceto build - but there not having enough trees where desired, and having too many big trees clustered together in one certain corner. We neither appreciated the fact that the bigcommunity garden out in back of one of the dilapidated row homes was in poor conditions,too bitter to grow anything, and kept too untidy to harvest anything clean. The group I worked, on this project with, and I, however, were fond of the sun exposure and open windthat this lot received, based on the sun angles, and wind directionalities, shown in the sunand wind diagrams, below.

* I �nd it somewhat regretful that the lot to our site is straight across from a gas works station, which seemslike a faux-paus on property value and aesthetic, ratherthan an asset to the community... Hopefully, with the arrangement of buildings within our site, this “faux-paus”can be overlooked.

12 ‘

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* The cluster of trees toward the middle of the site may seemlike a nuisance, upon encounter - but, ifmanicured, or replanted properly, mayprovide an asset to the site, along with amultitude of other smaller trees availableto be planted, on site. I also feel like the excess of trees, indeed, block necessary afternoon sun.

* While there seems to be little free space, towards the Southwestern end of the plaza, this lot space could bene�t froma community hub, or commmercial/event space, such as a park, corner store, cafe, farmer’s market, or even a possibleextension to the current townhomes on that side of the street.

* Another �aw within this site, is the fact that the community garden has almost been destroyed.Not only that, but the conditions of the row houses,on the backside of each, have deteriorated, as well.However, with possible restoration to these row homes,the back can stay just as beautiful as, if not more than,the front of them.

* There is also lots of free space to build or plant a new garden, and housing complexon the Eastern side of this lot - alhtough our options do not have to limit themselvesto one side of the site. Also, note: since this empty side of the lot faces East, there is anample natural reception of morning sun, on this lot.