CITY TOWERS

The Towers are skeletal steel structures

wrapped in layers of stainless steel
mesh and perforated metal. LED lights
inside allow for a variety of dramatic
lighting effects. Each Gateway has a
color scheme that is expressed by painted
elements by day and through artificial
lighting at night. The Towers are capable
of conveying information such as weather
conditions, road warnings and the time of
day, and of marking important occasions
and celebrations. One to three Towers are
arranged at each Gateway site in unique
configurations specific to the site.

COLOR FIELDS
Colored elements and color-coded
environmental lighting dot the landscape
around each Gateway area. The color
theme is expressed during the day by
colored signage, light poles, banners and
other colored elements. By night, the
freeway underpasses and other locations
around the Gateway become bathed in
immersive colored light. Light poles and
roadside ground lighting accent the major
onramps and connector roads.

NORTHWEST GATEWAY
CITY TOWERS
A system of color-coded celebratory
“City Towers” and environmental color-
fields encircle the city to make a powerful
statement about the periphery of the urban
center and its connection to the network
of freeways.

MONUMENT CIRCLE

Western Gateway

CITY TOWERS IN INDIANAPOLIS

Indianapolis Indiana 2006


SKY LIGHT & EVENING GLOW
CANAL PROMENADE
TWIN ROUND-A-BOUTS
Approaching the District from all directions
the confused tangle of procession across,
into and out of the City becomes more clear
and smooth with the construction of two
monumental round-a-bouts, Sky Light and
Attucks Circle. Successfully applied in other
NORTH STAR CITY TOWERS Midwestern locations, this approach corrects
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of roads while also applying a more context
sensitive solution to an out-dated design
conceived and brutally erected in the 1970’s
in what was then an economically depressed
neighborhood.

SKY LIGHT/EVENING GLOW
NORTH STAR
The North Star has guided explorers,
wanderers and seekers throughout history.
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across the unknown to seek a future in a new
place. Just as the North Star anchored the
Dipping Gourd that guided escaping slaves
along the Underground Railroad, the North
Star anchors the Canal Promenade. Providing
a neighborhood landmark that orients and
connects you to this place. This large
sculptural cone, clad in woven stainless steel
mesh and studded with thousands of small
LED lights, symbolically speaks about people
coming together from distant places to focus
their energy in a collaboration to build a new
future for themselves and this community.

PORTAL ENTRY
Imagine passing through a series of great
public spaces, green places that greet you
with people, water, active at all times of the
day, marked by sculptural landmarks and
at night imbued with subtle glowing layers
of designed light. This PORTAL ENTRY
begins with reworking the entry/exit ramps of
Interstate 65 in a dramatic fashion using twin
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smoothly through high volume intersections.
What emerges from this monumental shift is
a major new public space, Attucks Circle,
NORTH STAR which promotes new Life Science Center
development; connects neighborhoods; creates
pedestrian links between Crispus Attucks
High School, Life Sciences Center, and the
Stutz artistic community; and, re-unites the
severed Canal. Attucks Circle anchors the
BOULEVARD, marking the juncture of West
Street and Dr. King Boulevard above which
the woven sculptural landmark, North Star
rises. Attucks Circle paired with Sky Light
is the pivot point that provides setting and
context for the monumental forms of CITY
TOWERS and its coordinated evening color
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Circle creates a civic front door for Crispus
Attucks High School providing an outdoor
gathering place for students and faculty.
Additionally, in a small gesture, toward the
past, we suggest re-naming Eleventh Street
in honor of United States Senator Charles
Sumner, who advocated in Congress for the
abolition of slavery and for securing equal
education for blacks, and whose name once
graced an IPS elementary school that stood
nearby.

DESIGN STATEMENT
From the earliest time we have looked to the
night sky for inspiration and for a way to guide
us home. We envision navigating the city
through a series of layered multiple landmarks,
boulevards, and light. Entrance and passage are
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landscape that has become cluttered and un-
welcoming. That passage begins at the perimeter
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the City along the inner loop of the freeway and
MONORAIL river, punctuated by portals that are linked to the
heart of downtown, Monument Circle. Each
portal shares three essential components. First,
CHARLES SUMNER STREET a system of color-coded CITY TOWERS and
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loop of the freeway, announcing each portal
destination, making a powerful statement about
arrival. Second, the transition from freeway to
city street marks the PORTAL ENTRY, where the
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with the PORTAL becomes a grand driving
experience, a BOULEVARD, introducing us to
the diverse neighborhood Districts that compose
Indianapolis. In this broad, layered manner we
provide a template for a comprehensive approach
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a cohesive, collective identity of place.

ATTUCKS CIRCLE
Western Gateway

BOULEVARD Indianapolis Indiana 2006

BOULEVARD/MARKER NORTH STAR CITY TOWERS

RELINK CANAL
Take the next step in Canal restoration by
reconstructing the length between Sixteenth
Street and Crispus Attucks. Maintain the
water level at its historic elevation, near
street level, enhancing the experience of the
BOULEVARD and offering inviting views
from the Interstate. Physically link the water
coming from Broad Ripple with the existing
Canal Walk through a series of channels
MONORAIL and basins marked with generous views and
dramatic features. Recapture portions of land
currently devoted to the interstate and extend
the pedestrian experience by the creation of a
series of dynamic passages between the Canal
Walk and the new Canal.

BOULEVARD MARKERS
Create a large, serial, Public Art work to mark
the new BOULEVARD. Using affordable
billboard construction technology erect these
Markers within the median, commissioning
ATTUCKS CIRCLE sculptors, visual and conceptual artists from
our region or the world, to create unique
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heritage of the District, the exploration of
Life Sciences, and the evolving notions of
Art’s leading edge.

STORMWATER PLANTERS
Embrace and apply innovative urban
stormwater management techniques being
tested across the Nation that use vegetated
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percolate, clean and dramatically reduce

CANAL
the amount of runoff draining into the
City’s storm sewers. Apply these principles
to all newly constructed aspects of the
CITY TOWERS BOULEVARD, including the round-a-bouts,
and the medians.

SKY LIGHT

DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING BLVD.

BOULEVARD
ATTUCKS CIRCLE
LIFE SCIENCES CENTER When West Street was hijacked by Interstate
65 and turned into a giant entry/exit ramp,
CITY TOWERS resulting in a wasteland of pavement,
congested intersections, and a discouraging
place for pedestrians to venture, the City was
NORTH STAR in a different era. We offer a new vision that
reunites West Street and Dr. Martin Luther King
I-65 NORTH

Street to create a Grand DRIVING experience

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reminiscent to the parks and boulevard system
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20th Century. The BOULEVARD we envision
creates a seamless connection between the
cultural/governmental/educational core and
ATTUCKS CIRCLE the twin Life Sciences Corridors of Senate
Avenue/Canal and Sixteenth Street that offers
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the surrounding neighborhoods. To achieve
this we must think at the same monumental
scale that conceived the freeways. Alter the
way Interstate 65, West Street and Dr. King
Street connect to liberate the city street as an
appendage of the Interstate and create a major
corridor that builds on the Indiana Avenue
Blueprint and provides a desirable pedestrian
promenade of beauty and safety. In this
Grand Plan, street furniture would go beyond
WEST ST

the generic catalog items, seeking links to the

remembered visual and oral heritage of the
District and the future opportunities of the
REET

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CANAL

by Life Sciences.

EMERGING FROM SKY LIGHT

SKY WALK
SKY LIGHT NORTH STAR

BUDGET/PHASING
For this place to truly become the WESTERN
GATEWAY it must be radically altered. The vision
offered will require a more extensive initiative
than the construction of a single object or landmark
and a budget greater than proposed, but the resultant
GATEWAY will be worth the larger effort. Our
proposal suggest a close collaboration between the
Rotary Club, the City of Indianapolis and Indiana
State Highways, in which the following steps be
taken:

1. City of Indianapolis: Immediate acquisition of

the land necessary for re-linking the Canal along Dr.
King Street.

2. City of Indianapolis: Initiate discussions with

the Indiana State Highways about the conceptual
engineering/design of the twin round-a-bouts, Attucks
Circle and Sky Light.
DR. MARTIN LUTHER BOULEVARD

3. Rotary Club and its Partners: Design, engineer

and build an initial vertical landmark from those
proposed with the monies raised from current fund
raising efforts.

4. City of Indianapolis and Life Sciences Partnership:

Initiate discussions about design and construction of the
new Canal north of Crispus Attucks.

CANAL PROMENADE
BOULEVARD & CANAL

16 FT
Western Gateway

STREET STORMWATER PLANTER

BOULEVARD VARIABLE WIDTH MEDIAN BOULEVARD STORMWATER PLANTER SCULPTURE/BENCH BOULEVARD LIGHT COLUMN
BOULEVARD MARKER Indianapolis Indiana 2006