Spring Break
The Daily OrangeSU grants to redesign downtown
By Michael Boren
Posted: 9/16/08, 12:30 AM EST Section: News
Syracuse University announced to city officials Aug. 28 that it would pledge $2 million in state grants to create an "interactive streetscape" along the Connective Corridor, a cultural strip connecting downtown Syracuse with University Hill. The initiative will bring new landscaping, lighting, outdoor furniture and active space to the outside of the Symphony Place development downtown.
The "interactive streetscape" project, which will be developed on East Onondaga Street between Warren and Salina Streets, will be a test for new materials and designs that officials want to use on the corridor, said Marilyn Higgins, vice president of community engagement and economic development on campus.
A design firm called Upstate within the SU's School of Architecture is working with the engineering firm Barton & Loguidice to create the project. Amenities include accent street lighting, multi-leveled clustered plantings and landscaping elements, outdoor furnishing and a possible motion-sensor water feature that will interact with the public at the street-level.
"What we're hoping is to have a fountain that reacts to motion, light (and) human presence," Higgins said.
Joe Sisko, the senior designer of Upstate, prefers the name "water feature" rather than "fountain" because of the way it will function with its environment.
"It's important that it's not a fountain because a fountain typically has a base and an edge that you can't go into," said Sisko. "The way we're thinking of the water feature is very much an active space. You interact with it; you play with it. It becomes lighted at night, so it's something that's very much about activity and imagery and intrigue ... It's not sort of this off-limits element."
Sisko said the water feature, which will also be programmed for different music, will be inactive during the weekend. This way, it doesn't turn into a "collection of leaves and garbage that fountains usually become during the late fall and early winter."
The "interactive streetscape" project, which will be developed on East Onondaga Street between Warren and Salina Streets, will be a test for new materials and designs that officials want to use on the corridor, said Marilyn Higgins, vice president of community engagement and economic development on campus.
A design firm called Upstate within the SU's School of Architecture is working with the engineering firm Barton & Loguidice to create the project. Amenities include accent street lighting, multi-leveled clustered plantings and landscaping elements, outdoor furnishing and a possible motion-sensor water feature that will interact with the public at the street-level.
"What we're hoping is to have a fountain that reacts to motion, light (and) human presence," Higgins said.
Joe Sisko, the senior designer of Upstate, prefers the name "water feature" rather than "fountain" because of the way it will function with its environment.
"It's important that it's not a fountain because a fountain typically has a base and an edge that you can't go into," said Sisko. "The way we're thinking of the water feature is very much an active space. You interact with it; you play with it. It becomes lighted at night, so it's something that's very much about activity and imagery and intrigue ... It's not sort of this off-limits element."
Sisko said the water feature, which will also be programmed for different music, will be inactive during the weekend. This way, it doesn't turn into a "collection of leaves and garbage that fountains usually become during the late fall and early winter."
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