Philadelphia is a blessed city. Cities around the globe will envy its enormous potential development space within urban borders. It offers a wide range of opportunities for urban regeneration within a sustainable framework. But Philadelphia is also facing severe problems. The city has to much open space: where to start investing? Properties are fragmented: how to realize critical mass? Landowners feel trapped: what to do and where? A structural approach is needed. We call it The Philadelphia LandBank. The Philadelphia LandBank creates clear priorities, sustainable coherence and equal chances for all. How? By defining a focal point for public investments, densification and marketing. Waterfront Fishtown, with 24% vacant properties (2003), could be such a future focal point of money, energy and pride. But is such a decision fair towards people in for example North Central, who will not profit from investments and rising land values there? No! For that reason The Philadelphia LandBank only invests in Fishtown, after landowners in this area hand over a third of their vacant properties. People from North Central and other neighborhoods can acquire one of these potentially high-value plots if they want to exchange their vacant properties to a 5:1-rate. This rate stimulates small landowners to join forces and cooperate in order to obtain a property in booming and privatizing Fishtown. The Philadelphia LandBank gains control in North Central, where it is able to reconnect individual pieces of land to a bigger ecological picture as a stronghold for future (> 30 years) urban development.
Status: Designed 2005
Location: Philadelphia, VS
Client: Philadelphia
Team: JDWA ism WeLoveTheCity
Philadelphia is a blessed city. Cities around the globe will envy its enormous potential development space within urban borders. It offers a wide range of opportunities for urban regeneration within a sustainable framework. But Philadelphia is also facing severe problems. The city has to much open space: where to start investing? Properties are fragmented: how to realize critical mass? Landowners feel trapped: what to do and where? A structural approach is needed. We call it The Philadelphia LandBank. The Philadelphia LandBank creates clear priorities, sustainable coherence and equal chances for all. How? By defining a focal point for public investments, densification and marketing. Waterfront Fishtown, with 24% vacant properties (2003), could be such a future focal point of money, energy and pride. But is such a decision fair towards people in for example North Central, who will not profit from investments and rising land values there? No! For that reason The Philadelphia LandBank only invests in Fishtown, after landowners in this area hand over a third of their vacant properties. People from North Central and other neighborhoods can acquire one of these potentially high-value plots if they want to exchange their vacant properties to a 5:1-rate. This rate stimulates small landowners to join forces and cooperate in order to obtain a property in booming and privatizing Fishtown. The Philadelphia LandBank gains control in North Central, where it is able to reconnect individual pieces of land to a bigger ecological picture as a stronghold for future (> 30 years) urban development.
Status: Designed 2005
Location: Philadelphia, VS
Client: Philadelphia
Team: JDWA ism WeLoveTheCity
Philadelphia is a blessed city. Cities around the globe will envy its enormous potential development space within urban borders. It offers a wide range of opportunities for urban regeneration within a sustainable framework. But Philadelphia is also facing severe problems. The city has to much open space: where to start investing? Properties are fragmented: how to realize critical mass? Landowners feel trapped: what to do and where? A structural approach is needed. We call it The Philadelphia LandBank. The Philadelphia LandBank creates clear priorities, sustainable coherence and equal chances for all. How? By defining a focal point for public investments, densification and marketing. Waterfront Fishtown, with 24% vacant properties (2003), could be such a future focal point of money, energy and pride. But is such a decision fair towards people in for example North Central, who will not profit from investments and rising land values there? No! For that reason The Philadelphia LandBank only invests in Fishtown, after landowners in this area hand over a third of their vacant properties. People from North Central and other neighborhoods can acquire one of these potentially high-value plots if they want to exchange their vacant properties to a 5:1-rate. This rate stimulates small landowners to join forces and cooperate in order to obtain a property in booming and privatizing Fishtown. The Philadelphia LandBank gains control in North Central, where it is able to reconnect individual pieces of land to a bigger ecological picture as a stronghold for future (> 30 years) urban development.
Status: Designed 2005
Location: Philadelphia, VS
Client: Philadelphia
Team: JDWA ism WeLoveTheCity