University of Miami School of Architecture faculty and students have been addressing regional, urban and environmental problems for many years, producing a trove of proposals for improvements across the region. One recent example of these outreach efforts is the Wagner Creek Study. Under the leadership of U-SoA Professor Joanna Lombard, in collaboration with Sonia Succar Rodríguez, Urban Program Manager for The Nature Conservancy in Florida, earlier this Spring, students in the Urban Design Studio developed projects based on a community workshop that was conducted by TNC. This effort engaged a broad coalition that included UM Architecture, Urban Design, and Miller School Public Health Sciences students, Campus Planners Rob Curtis and Ricardo Herran, and a team from FIU’s Sea Level Solution Center to explore improving the human interface with, and ecological resilience of the historic Wagner Creek.
Wagner Creek is a tributary that emerges from a spring in Allapattah, and flows through Miami’s Health District, before joining the Miami River just north of Downtown. Proposals developed by the Studio include a walking trail along the creek to enhance connectivity among the many high-activity facilities and destinations of courts, hospitals clinics, schools and residences in the District; pedestrian bridges to facilitate walking with more frequent crossings of the Creek; and waterfront improvements in several sites that would invite public access and commercial activity such as restaurants in a restored natural environment. Mayor Daniel Dietch of Surfside and environmental consultant to Jacobs CH2M joined Sonia Succar Rodríguez to review the student work which TNC is taking forward to develop in an immediate project with Jackson Health System, as well as future collaborations with property owners and the City of Miami.
