Highway Hierarchies

Tulare, California
Yale Architecture
200,000 SF
2006

The flatlands of the Route 99 corridor in California’s Central Valley are deceptively bucolic. In reality, the region is heavily populated by industrial agribusiness operations. The rest stop reconfiguration, while constrained by the turning radii of large freight trucks, attempts to create vertical separation among the programming for pedestrians, automobiles, and trucks, inverting the highway hierarchy in which vehicles dominate over pedestrians.

The site plan features seven distinct fingers that slope up toward the highway shoulders, with bathroom modules located at the tips. Transitioning from transparent mesh decking to plantable grasscrete pavers, each ramp facilitates a gradual fading from the greenscape of the surrounding landscape to the hardscapes of the highway. The greenscape portion of the project features sustainable bioswales and gray water filtration beds. The transparent mesh decking also allows for pedestrians to observe the expanse of truck rooftops beneath them as a continuous yet temporary surface that evolves over the course of the day and night. This vertical projection creates image-ability for the site, even at high speeds and long distances, prompting drivers to stop and explore.