Site History and Analysis:

The Mantua neighborhood suffers from decades of neglect and a slow decay of infrastructure, and population. Before urban flight left the neighborhood with less local jobs, residents were able to find work in local factories along the rail route. Most of these factories lay vacant, or have been converted to housing.

Community activism was strong in the 1960’s, but struggled to overcome the gang violence that plagued the neighborhood. Despite the rise in crime, community groups were able to enact a variety of urban renewal projects.

During the 1980’s, a rise in drug related crime began to decimate the neighborhood. This had lasting effects and the results can be seen today. The neighborhood is not safe, there are few local jobs and the lack of infrastructure prevents investment from developers who might otherwise convert large areas of vacant land into modern housing.

Today, Mantua has a renewed energy and community leaders are slowly realizing small scale urban renewal projects. The potential for the neighborhood is large. It is located at the edge of the city, connected to a regional.national rail network, and has large parcels of vacant and or underutilized land.

My proposal for the site will focus on the future potential of renewable energy with a holistic approach to capturing the energy from the sun and transforming it into a new resource for the community and beyond.

My initial analysis of the site looked at underutilized land and features of the neighborhood in order to unlock not yet discovered potential. What I discovered was that the rail line, always present in the neighborhood, acted as a virtual wall for movement through and around the neighborhood. The rail yard also left a large portion of the neighborhood with an eye sore that is untouchable by community groups. This eye sore, falls at intersecting rail lines where SEPTA has constructed a large scale transformer station with complete disregard for the surrounding residents.

On the flip side, the expansive rail yard creates an opportunity for developing a new type of infrastructure that serves multiple functions. I envision this infrastructure as an energy source for the community, both metaphorically and literally.

Project Time Line:

Beginning with the construction of a community training center, this new power plant concept will work to transform naturally occurring energy through multiple layers and processes. The energy produced will provide electricity, food and other resources that will be used by the community and beyond.

The power plant will become the anchor of the community, but will be complimented by a variety of infrastructure projects throughout the community including:

• Block sized canopies that will provide energy, food and water.
• Multi unit canopies with singular or dual functions (energy, food, or water)
• Modular units that will provide small scale functions, but act as anchors for the larger infrastructure throughout the community

Once the larger infrastructure is in place, neighborhood stores and other community amenities will be a part of the second phase of infill.