Health, Climate, and Placemaking in Rural Nebraska: Spatial Approaches

Ethan Weiche & Nash Kelly Author

04/02/2021 Added

15 Plays

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Video revealing the opportunities for rural communities to build, enact, and/or implement certain interventions to promote health and wellbeing as well as sustainability. The video also covers a recommended process of arriving at such interventions.

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[00:00:01.470]Hello, my name is Ethan Weiche.
[00:00:03.870]And I'm Nash Kelly.
[00:00:05.180]And this is our You Care project titled,
[00:00:07.113]""Health, Climate, and Placemaking
[00:00:09.400]in Rural Nebraska: Spatial Approaches.""
[00:00:12.200]So, we are both architecture students here
[00:00:14.590]at UNL and as such, we're intrigued by the potential
[00:00:18.110]of architecture and the built environment impact our lives.
[00:00:22.080]Moreover, in light of our ever-changing climate
[00:00:24.990]and the knowledge that climate change
[00:00:26.590]will disproportionately effect those
[00:00:28.610]more economically disadvantaged,
[00:00:31.040]as well as those in rural communities,
[00:00:33.060]our investigation really sits
[00:00:34.970]at the confluence of these two contexts.
[00:00:37.740]So, while you've already heard the official title,
[00:00:40.770]perhaps a simpler way to put it might be something like,
[00:00:43.803]""Ways Rural Nebraska Can Promote Health and Wellbeing,
[00:00:47.810]Address the Major Demographic Shift Away From Rural Places,
[00:00:51.780]and Do So in a Way That Respects
[00:00:53.600]the Ongoing Environmental Emergency.""
[00:00:56.680]Our goal in this project was twofold.
[00:00:59.010]First, we wanted to present a variety
[00:01:01.070]of possible interventions, or what we have called,
[00:01:04.220]Future Sustainability Prospects for Rural Towns.
[00:01:07.290]Second, we wanted to do so by using a process
[00:01:10.750]that is only occasionally used
[00:01:12.360]in our architecture education,
[00:01:14.240]though still valuable, mapping.
[00:01:16.470]Thus, our end product would be to deliver several
[00:01:19.220]recommendations and utilize a lesser known process
[00:01:22.030]of doing so.
[00:01:24.920]One final critical role to mention here
[00:01:27.820]is that we expected this process,
[00:01:29.730]and the resulting future sustainability prospects to apply
[00:01:32.990]to nearly any city, especially small towns.
[00:01:36.380]This is because many
[00:01:37.470]of the future sustainability prospects rely
[00:01:40.010]on having open space, which categorically
[00:01:43.060]rural towns tend to have more than urban cores.
[00:01:46.310]This particular strength of rural places
[00:01:48.710]serve as a jumping off point
[00:01:50.720]for our speculating on future sustainability prospects.
[00:01:54.850]With that said, we can begin to look
[00:01:56.810]over what we have identified
[00:01:58.630]as possible future sustainability prospects.
[00:02:02.030]These prospects are all spatial solutions
[00:02:04.650]that are sustainably designed, managed with the goal
[00:02:07.930]of supporting a healthy and prosperous future for the town.
[00:02:11.410]They have been researched in terms
[00:02:13.200]of their provable benefits to the community
[00:02:15.470]as well as gathered
[00:02:16.550]from our previous research in years past.
[00:02:19.490]In short, they are, local food production,
[00:02:22.540]in particular solutions
[00:02:24.030]such as community gardens or geothermal greenhouses.
[00:02:28.630]Carbon sinks, which we understand them as tremendously
[00:02:32.710]large swaths of vegetation
[00:02:34.430]or re-wild land to sequester carbon.
[00:02:37.630]Sustainable architecture, so these are classifications
[00:02:40.680]such as lead, well, or the living building challenge,
[00:02:44.150]and these are all popular classifications
[00:02:47.280]and signal pro-environment attitudes.
[00:02:49.840]Third places, or where people meet and socialize
[00:02:53.100]between home and work.
[00:02:54.800]Renovations, which are older built forms
[00:02:57.530]and typologies unique to rural America that present
[00:03:00.810]unique architectural opportunities.
[00:03:03.490]Unique attractions, particularly those things
[00:03:06.860]that don't have an equal replacement for, in nearby towns.
[00:03:10.670]And event space, which can range from anything
[00:03:13.560]as simple as a pavilion
[00:03:14.930]to as grand as an amphitheater by a river.
[00:03:17.940]And last, renewable energy farms,
[00:03:20.890]which, as is probably obvious, just take up a lot of space.
[00:03:25.760]With the interventions listed, we can begin to go
[00:03:28.290]over the towns we selected,
[00:03:29.890]which are Ravenna, Lexington and Norfolk.
[00:03:32.356]These towns were selected
[00:03:34.080]because together they represent a diverse sampling
[00:03:36.670]of population, population size,
[00:03:38.980]and differing proximity to urban cores,
[00:03:41.570]which in turn, all affect our final recommendations.
[00:03:45.170]Now, in order to showcase our process and work,
[00:03:48.470]we will focus on Norfolk in particular.
[00:03:51.130]Our process begins by using free open source software
[00:03:54.280]to export a crude initial map.
[00:03:57.190]This first map closely resembles a snapshot
[00:03:59.910]of something from Google maps,
[00:04:01.420]and it contains a ton of information
[00:04:03.320]about the existing infrastructure, and layout of the city.
[00:04:07.140]The only problem is it's very messy,
[00:04:09.640]and doesn't show everything we're interested in.
[00:04:12.220]Thus, we began to make individual layers
[00:04:14.960]that highlight different components
[00:04:16.420]of Norfolk, in no particular order.
[00:04:18.770]These are, its restaurants, civic spaces,
[00:04:23.270]attractions,
[00:04:25.180]roads, main street,
[00:04:28.400]green spaces, and parks,
[00:04:30.590]its downtown area,
[00:04:33.460]airport,
[00:04:34.900]nearby rivers,
[00:04:36.640]and railroads.
[00:04:38.240]Surrounding land use, internal residential organization,
[00:04:43.360]and last, a proximity bubble showing a circle
[00:04:47.780]of half a mile, a sort of scale to the city.
[00:04:51.890]By examining all these layers, demographics and et cetera,
[00:04:55.570]we would suggest that Norfolk may benefit the most
[00:04:58.700]from investing in sustainable architecture.
[00:05:01.210]And this is due to the size of the city,
[00:05:03.530]the relative abundance of civic spaces,
[00:05:06.180]nearby attractions and parks,
[00:05:08.490]and the fact that they currently
[00:05:09.780]have ongoing development projects.
[00:05:12.200]In other words, Norfolk is growing in size
[00:05:15.200]and already has enough amenities or what people look
[00:05:18.830]for first in moving to a city.
[00:05:21.150]Accordingly, sustainable architecture
[00:05:23.310]can be thought of as the next step.
[00:05:25.910]It is by definition,
[00:05:27.130]better for the environment, is oftentimes much healthier
[00:05:29.990]for the occupants, especially for,
[00:05:32.600]with an accreditation like well,
[00:05:34.760]and may signal to potential graduates
[00:05:36.970]and or younger people looking to settle,
[00:05:39.430]and like that Norfolk is pro-environment.
[00:05:43.460]To conclude our presentation, our project focused
[00:05:46.600]on using mapping as a means to form a deep understanding
[00:05:49.840]of the towns we were designing for.
[00:05:52.180]From these maps, we could make more informed suggestions
[00:05:54.860]as to what a town could implement, build,
[00:05:57.400]or enact to help attract new residents,
[00:05:59.980]keep the current ones healthy,
[00:06:01.760]and do so as sustainably as possible.
[00:06:04.720]In the end, we believe Ravenna would benefit
[00:06:07.240]from an updated civic type spaces,
[00:06:09.680]especially one on main street that deals with food.
[00:06:13.070]Lexington could look to leverage its relative local size
[00:06:16.380]to implement some unique attractions.
[00:06:18.540]And as already stated, Norfolk ought to invest
[00:06:22.120]in sustainable design and development.
[00:06:25.650]For the structure then, further research might build
[00:06:28.490]on our mapping process as it seems right
[00:06:31.150]for some kind of structure.
[00:06:33.220]The addition of more individual map layers,
[00:06:35.500]as well as, special combination type maps,
[00:06:38.490]where very specific individual layers are combined,
[00:06:41.390]are good examples of such structure.
[00:06:43.730]Additionally, it may be informative
[00:06:45.780]to apply the same thinking to more cities.
[00:06:48.480]While certainly a time investment,
[00:06:50.410]the mapping proved a critical part
[00:06:52.050]in understanding each town
[00:06:53.550]and their subsequent future sustainability prospect.
[00:06:56.133]Thank you.
[00:06:56.966]Thank you.

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Health, Climate, and Placemaking in Rural Nebraska: Spatial Approaches

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