Cumberland’s Baltimore Street: A Festival Street Within an Urban Forest

Project artist William Cochran identifies Silva Cells as “key to the whole design” of the newly designed Baltimore Street, which just reopened in November 2024

All photographs courtesy of Cochran Studio

“There’s really no other way to have large trees in a historic urban streetscape without soil cells.”

-William Cochran, Project Artist

Baltimore St. Project

Number of Silva Cells: 1,482 (2x)
Number of Trees: 49
Soil Volume per Tree: 1,000+ ft³
Project Designer/Artist: William Cochran
Project Contractor: Triton Construction
Project Engineer: EADS Group
Installation: Summer 2023

Project Overview

Tasked with transforming Downtown Cumberland’s Baltimore Street into a more inviting and accessible urban space, William Cochran — the first artist to design a major U.S. streetscape — envisioned festival-style flexibility within a high-canopy urban forest. Silva Cells helped bring this vision to reality: installed under the 22-foot-wide sidewalks, the system is ensuring each of the 49 new London Plane trees planted in 2023 receive access to lightly compacted soil for mature growth.

Urban Forest as Project Catalyst

One of the most admirable elements of this project is its commitment to urban forestry. Indeed, it was a project centerpiece and a catalyst for revitalization — a method for accomplishing numerous objectives at once, from both a design and a sustainability perspective. The economic reality was laid out masterfully in the project prospectus, envisioning the new street trees as a smart investment (as opposed to an aesthetic perk), identifying a number of concurrent advantages:

Reducing the heat island effect
Making downtown more livable for visitors
Creating a magnetic local landmark
Cleaning air of pollutants
Adding stormwater capacity
Increasing business revenue
Raising property values
Expanding the tax base
Reducing crime

From the Designer

“Soil cells really were the key to the whole design.”

"This investment in tall trees and soil cells would leverage way more funds than it cost."

“The trees are literally the umbrella under which everything else flourishes."

"With trees, you can have a lot more of an active, pedestrian-friendly downtown."

“The only way that we could have sidewalks this wide was if there were subsurface soil cells."

Silva Cells and Soil

Lightly compacted soil volume is one of the most important factors in the success or failure of an urban tree. Along Baltimore Street, the Silva Cells are providing an impressive soil environment for the new London Plane trees: each one is accessing at least 1,000 cubic feet of soil volume, a recipe for large, healthy trees for years to come.

The New Baltimore Street

Mixed-Use Accessibility

The old Baltimore Street was a pedestrian-only downtown corridor, which, thanks in part to the lack of vehicle access and limited visibility (due to poor lighting and blocked signage), had devolved into a sleepy retail district. The newly designed street opens access to cars, but in a unique way: the 12-foot-wide one-way vehicle lane is surrounded by 22-foot-wide curb-less sidewalks, one on each side. This design ensures a mixed-use of the space (including street parking), while prioritizing foot traffic and slow-speed vehicle movement. The new space is now more accessible for walkers, bikers, and drivers alike.

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