Runners' World: Trail Infrastructure for Navigating Extreme Urban Freeway Conditions

Abstract

Exponential growth of the world population and the growing environmental crises has put higher and higher demands on land and infrastructural systems. In order to optimize efficiency of urban space, infrastructure should be designed for more than just single function. The freeway cuts through a city, physically dividing neighborhoods, leaving broken ends where it severs ties. Instead of cutting these networks, this arterial connector should join with other infrastructural systems to engage with the cultural and environmental conditions it passes by. This thesis analyzes how infrastructure and architecture can integrate to better accommodate the moving body in the growing city. The networks below the freeway and the landscapes divided by the neglect of attention from the scale of freeway design are explored in this thesis through the network of pedestrian trails along the freeway, focusing on runners as exemplars of city navigators. During training, runners find hidden paths to traverse from side A to side B of the freeway. This runners' map of the city is utilized in this thesis to explore the occupation that is possible in leftover spaces of the highway infrastructure. A series of sites located along the trail system interface with the different spatial conditions and neighborhood networks along the freeway to provide a variety of connections and amenities for pedestrians at different scales. By exploring the possibilities of its formal functions and unique spatial conditions of the freeway, the architecture can better respond to the rapid densification of the city .