Case Studies, twelve cases on a city life

case studies twelve cases on a city life

authors

Pieter Bertheloot Eva De FrĂŠ Antrees Engelen Dieter Leyssen Koen Moesen Dorien Pelst Maximiliaan Royakkers Pieter Vandenhoudt Pieter Van den Poel Camiel Van Noten Arnout Van Soom Miguel Van Steenbrugge Sofie Verjans

promotors

Tom Thys Ward Verbakel

© Copyright by K.U.Leuven Without written permission of the promoters and the authors it is forbidden to reproduce or adapt in any form or by any means any part of this publication. Requests for obtaining the right to reproduce or utilize parts of this publication should be addressed to K.U.Leuven, Faculty of Engineering – Kasteelpark Arenberg 1, B-3001 Heverlee (België). Telefoon +3216-32 13 50 & Fax. +32-16-32 19 88.

A written permission of the promotor is also required to use the methods, products, schematics and programs described in this work for industrial or commercial use, and for submitting this publication in scientific contests.

All images in this booklet are, unless credits are given, made or drawn by the authors (Studio Brooklyn).

case studies twelve cases on a city life

authors

Pieter Bertheloot Eva De FrĂŠ Antrees Engelen Dieter Leyssen Koen Moesen Dorien Pelst Maximiliaan Royakkers Pieter Vandenhoudt Pieter Van den Poel Camiel Van Noten Arnout Van Soom Miguel Van Steenbrugge Sofie Verjans

promotors

Tom Thys Ward Verbakel

© Copyright by K.U.Leuven Without written permission of the promoters and the authors it is forbidden to reproduce or adapt in any form or by any means any part of this publication. Requests for obtaining the right to reproduce or utilize parts of this publication should be addressed to K.U.Leuven, Faculty of Engineering – Kasteelpark Arenberg 1, B-3001 Heverlee (België). Telefoon +3216-32 13 50 & Fax. +32-16-32 19 88.

A written permission of the promotor is also required to use the methods, products, schematics and programs described in this work for industrial or commercial use, and for submitting this publication in scientific contests.

All images in this booklet are, unless credits are given, made or drawn by the authors (Studio Brooklyn).

case studies twelve cases on a city life

acknowledgement

On behalf of all students, we would like to extend our sincere gratitude to all those who made it possible. We thank Tom Thys and Ward Verbakel, our two promoters. Without them, thirteen graduation theses would never have been realized. We are grateful to ASRO, NYIT, Columbia University, GSAPP and in particular to Richard Plunz for visiting us at our studio in Leuven. For their valuable time and information, we want to express our gratitude to Justin Moore, Manual Avila, Giovanni Santamarina, Sandro Marpillero, Angela Soong, Yong Kim, and Joseph Haberl who have guided us through the complex network that Brooklyn is.

Studio Brooklyn

methodology

BROOKLYN 101 SOCIAL ENCLAVES

COLLECTIVE CULTURE

PLANNING THE CITY

LIVING MODELS

CITY ECOLOGY

SITE ANALYSIS

Red Hook

SITE ANALYSIS

Crown Heights

SITE ANALYSIS

East New York

CASE STUDIES 12 CASE STUDIES

EXPERIMENTS 13 EXPERIMENTS

Red Hook

Crown Heights East New York

Five Chapters on a City Life presents the studio results of the KU Leuven Master of Architecture graduation thesis studio on Brooklyn, NYC, an investigation carried out during the academic year 2011-2012 by thirteen graduation students. It is the first of three studio books. Five Chapters on a City Life explores the whole of Brooklyn and ends with our urban experiments. The second studio book, the Site Analysis, is limited to a single neighborhood and is carried out by three to five students. The third book is the collection of twelve Case Studies dealing with various subjects. Throughout the collective research, personal design proposals have arisen and led to the student’s individual graduation design thesis.

index

1

Regenerative Urbanism: wetlands as urban infrastructure 13 Pieter Bertheloot

2

Is detroit the 'new brooklyn'?

27 Eva de FrĂŠ

3

The Atlantic Yards project 45 Antrees Engelen

4

Newly Critical Practice 69 Dieter Leyssen

5

prospect plaza: Towards a new future since 1997 89 Koen Moesen

6

2 waterfront projects in manhattan and brooklyn 103 Dorien Pelst

7

Gateway Development 119 Maximiliaan Royakkers and Camiel Van Noten

8

revaluating the elevated 139 Pieter Vandenhoudt

9

COOperative housing 165 Pieter Van den Poel

10

Brooklyn Bridge Park: Public Park or housing development?

181 Arnout Van Soom

11

Greenpoint-williamsburg waterfront redevelopment 199 Miguel Van Steenbrugge

12

PARKWAYS: City-Shaping devices 211 Sofie Verjans

Regenerati ve Urbani sm: w etl ands as urban i nfrastructure Pieter Bertheloot

The contemporary city’s systems are addressed in a linear manner, where input and output are separated, while nature’s metabolism is circular. We are disconnected with the processes we depend on. Connection between human and natural processes based on deep dynamic and complex relationships are gradually being lost.

How can we reconceptualize urban design in order to redefine the city with a sustainable vision for the future?

Regenerative urban design is based on systems theory, where the objective is to renew, revitalize or restore systems with integrity to the natural landscape.

This, together with creating green infrastwructure with an ecological and social dimension that is the base for resilient development with growth but without harm1.

re-ge-ne-ra-tion: 1. The act or process of regenerating or the state of being regenerated 2. Spiritual or moral revival or rebirth 3. Biology regrowth of lost or destroyed parts or organs

14

Regenerative Urbanism

| Pieter Bertheloot

A.

Land which is temporarily or permanently under water. The wetlands are characterized by their specific vegetation and are habitat to a wide array of species. The biodiversity within a wetland system is one of the largest in any soil type on earth. They are valuable ecosystems with a the ability to purify water while being critical element in flood control systems of cities2.

WE T L A N DS

B.

A. A variety of birds, fishes, amphibian and other species are found within the swamps or marshes.

B. Water pollution remains one of the most critical global issues we are facing today.

C. New York is blessed with a thriving wetland ecosystem in Jamaica Bay.

C.

15

Globally, wetlands are rapidly being lost. This is mainly because of drainage and landfills to create dry land for further urbanization. In areas that were industrialized during the 19th century, a lot of the soft edge has been replaced by impervious surfaces such as docks, quays and channels, totally removing these fragile ecosystems from the map. An estimate 80% has been lost already.

The impenetrability also increased stormwater runoff and limits infiltration of water into the soil.

If the wetlands are still existing, deterioration by illegal contaminated water dumpings or sewage overflows, causing serious damage to the ecosystem, happens frequently.

Ecologically, this loss is an endangerment for the environment. The only resolution is conservation or regeneration of those vulnerable systems3.

o n the m a p

16

Regenerative Urbanism

| Pieter Bertheloot

D. The historic ‘soft’ shoreline of New York in 1766. You can see Red Hook in lower left corner.

D.

From the first time mankind was defining regions on primitive maps, they defined a clear and strict distinction between water and land. Two systems, two ecologies, two complete separate areas, coexisting next to each other. On this map of New York from the year 1660, a bold line divides both.

This is somewhat the case of the meadow and the forest.

They both have steady, working ecologies and structures. But on the borderline, where those two meet, there is a place of uncertainty. This uncertainty forms the base for evolution.

This is the place where change can happen.

A wetland is this place of uncertainty. A dynamic, ever changing system that’s under the influence of conditions.

Mapping wetlands is more like making a snapshot. It shows an instance in time. In reality, they are living, resilient networks.

E.

F.

17

H.

co ns tr uc t e d we tl a nd s

As water contamination remains the premier cause of human disease and ecosystems are being lost worldwide to water pollution5, conservation and rehabilitation of wetlands can be the key for the future.

Engineered or constructed wetlands are artificial wetlands created for several reasons: they create a habitat for indigenous or migratory species and they have the ability to purify water.

This is due to the varied vegetation, where microorganisms can grow and break down organic materials, as they use those as nutrients. Those wetlands are often called reed beds3, referring to the reed plant that grows there. The reeds are colonising the ground in a very specific sequence, depending on the soil type, from flooded soils to dryer and dryer grounds more inland. Up to 200 types of vegetation can be found in natural wetlands, hence their great biodiversity.

Being called the kidneys of the earth, wetlands play a mayor role in naturally restoring waterways and bays or creating a sustainable green infrastructure for dealing with a city’s greywater.

18

Regenerative Urbanism

| Pieter Bertheloot

G. A very schematic section of a wetland.

Different plants on different soils.

H. Wetlands have the ability to purify greywater.

G.

K.

ho uta n pa r k by t ur e n sc a p e

The objective of the design was to create a green expo, which would afterwards permanently remain a park. The design

by Turenscape, is located at the Huangpu river in Shanghai, which was heavily polluted by large amount of industry on the river banks. The site itself was a brownfield used as a dumping ground and landfill.

The park constitutes of three layers: upgrading the water quality by regenerative design, creating a pleasant public space and respectfully dealing with the industrial heritage. The project has been rewarded multiple times and is viewed as one of the better landscape projects of the past few years. Let’s take a look at the design concepts and how they realised this in practice.

I. Platforms and paths in recycled materials wrapping through the wetlands.

J. Water accessibility was key.

K. This used to be an industrial site.

J.

I.

19

L. Plan view and bird’s eye view of the proposed design.

20

Regenerative Urbanism

| Pieter Bertheloot

N.

TH E L I V I N G L A ND S C A P E

The heavily polluted water of the Huangpu river is upgraded thanks to the 5 - 3Om wide constructed wetlands acting as a living machine. A vast array of plants are placed in a certain sequence to foment the cleaning process and gradually remove the pollutants from the waterway. In this manner 2,400 cubic meters of water can be purified per day. The water quality improves from grade V (the worst, impossible for fishing or leisure) to grade III (available for nonpotable use). In addition to upgrading the water quality, the wetlands create a flood plain, protecting the city from rising currents. The original buffer, a concrete wall, was replaced by a much more resilient and accessible protective system.

The construction of the wetlands are inspired by the historic rice fields in China, celebrating the agricultural heritage before the industrialization. The terraces also bridge the elevation between the water and the city, creating an invitational gesture. Regaining accessibility of the waterfront was one of the primary objectives. On certain places an urban farm is realised as well. The crops rotate and seasonal changes are viewable. This adds an educational dimension to the project, as people get the chance to learn about farming and agriculture in the city.

N. Plan view M. Section of terraces

M.

21

Th e pe d e s t r ia n ne t wo r k

O.

P.

A big part of upgrading the waterfront is making it accessible to the public. Years and years of designating the waterfront as industrial zone, made the people lose connection with the water.

Nowadays, priorities are shifting and the value of an accessible waterfront is seen. In all large cities public waterfront projects are coming up, redefining how the contemporary city works from the water out. Making the water accessible again is also important to raise awareness concerning water pollution.

Turenscape designed a network of paths and platforms to create a connection with the Huangpu river and its surroundings, while educating the visitors about green infrastructure and how the project is an ecological recovered landscape.

The platforms create resting points in the flux of pedestrians, where people can sit, meet and play.

In order to make the project as sustainable as possible and to identify with the industrial heritage, a lot of materials from tore down structures were reused in the boardwalks. From steel panels to bamboo, the materialization is in total correspondence with the history of the site. As well, some industrial structures are reclaimed and revitalised in the new park.

Q.

22

Regenerative Urbanism

| Pieter Bertheloot

R.

Houtan Park has been a very exemplary project in regenerative urbanism and has been gathering awards everywhere.

Next to the World’s Best Landscape at the WAF Awards, and the ASLA Professional Awards for design excellence, design leader Yu Kongjian got honorations on different occasions.

The project has beaten the ever popular High Line project in Manhattan, which has got a lot more media attention and worked with a much larger budget.

This might be a very important aspect of the story. This shows how much this project and the design strategies are being appreciated. Regenerative urbanism should be the solution for similar projects. By looking at the bigger picture generated by systems, the design is much more incorporated into the surroundings while adding positive side-effects, such as improving the water quality. The low cost - low maintenance approach has also been an important factor of the design. Building for the economic reality is a crucial part designing with a sustainable vision for the city.

S.

23

T.

bro o kly n

has been blessed with large and diverse wetlands.

Over 200 years of intense industrialisation, just a fraction remains, mostly located at Jamaica Bay. The bay used to be called ‘Grassy Bay’, referring to the enormous amount of marshland. It is still one of the largest tidal wetland complexes in the state and has a rich coastal ecosystem.

The best known ‘sustainable’ or ‘ecological’ projects all deal with restoration of natural environments. In Jamaica Bay this is just part of the story. A relatively large share of the wetlands are still existing, but parts are in really bad condition. There is a strong need for conservation of the remaining marshes and some parts are in need of improvement after prolonged deterioration.

Between 1924 and 19996, half of the marshes were lost. An average of 160.000m2 of wetlands are lost annually since 2003 in Jamaica Bay. The reason for the loss isn’t really clear but it is probably due to dredging, filling, development, water pollution and rising currents.

New York’s aging water infrastructure is one of the main perpetrators of the pollution. In case of storms, sewage gets dumped straight into Jamaica Bay, from virtually every direction. This phenomenon is called CSO or combined sewer overflow. Also, the water dumped by the water treatment plants isn’t as pollution-free as you might think. Daily, huge amounts of nitrogen and organic materials are discharged into the bay.

Jamaica Bay plays an important role in the city’s ecology, as it is a nutrient-rich estuary and one of the most biodiverse regions of the city, and should get the attention and the appropriate projects it requires. The concept of (re)generative urbanism is consequently quite relevant in this area.

24

Regenerative Urbanism

| Pieter Bertheloot

U.

S our c es 1: Regenerative design, internet, 24.10.11 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_design 2: Wetlands, internet 24.10.11 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetland C. Picture: Kathy Willens/Associated Press A. Picture: http://www.safaristouganda.com/images/birds-queen-elizabeth.jpg B. Picture: http://postconflict.unep.ch/sudanreport/sudan_website/doccatcher/data/Photographs%20Figures%20and%20 Captions%20by%20Chapter/Ch6/Chapter%20photos/6.5f%20in%20towns%20DSC_0077.JPG D. Picture: http://what-when-how.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/tmp638_thumb.jpg 3: Wetland losses, internet, 24.10.11 http://science.jrank.org/pages/7376/Wetlands-Losses-wetlands.htmlBased on the Mannahatta project by Sanderson and Boyer 4: Reed Beds, internet, 24.10.11 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_bed 5: Wastewater gardens, internet, 24.10.11 http://www.wastewatergardens.com/1en_overview.html E. Picture: https://ldpd.lamp.columbia.edu/omeka/exhibits/show/stokes/vol_2/item/3506 F. Picture: http://www.eoearth.org/files/177901_178000/177981/suisun_marsh_wetlands.jpg G: Picture: http://www.alexfortney.com/thesis/process/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Preliminary-Wetland-Section-Detail-East.jpg H. Picture: http://cdn.blisstree.com/files/2010/02/wetland.jpg I. Picture: http://files2.cityweekend.com.cn/files/images/2010/08/18/image-20100818-ey7ppk7up223vrha9us6_t570.jpeg J. Picture: http://www.asla.org/2010awards/images/index/006_index.jpg K. Picture :http://inspiredblog.inspiredm.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/2-bridged-garden.jpg L. Picture: http://www.asla.org/2010awards/images/largescale/006_01.jpg N. + M. Picture: http://landscapeofmeaning.blogspot.com/2010/05/china-sweepsP. Picture:http://www10.aeccafe.com/blogs/arch-showcase/files/2011/05/006-09-terrace-N-S.jpg O. Picture: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bmbP7YoZ2Wc/TcbkR9qDnsI/AAAAAAAAAAM/MAKb6Zj91l8/s1600/02-turenscape-houtan-park.jpg Q. Picture: 0H016023420.jpg

http://api.ning.com/files/87dsFhUypIfhUSVh6v5d2721ur3cGrwKsz5xb15v*MWNIllxcT03GQaiCksmHQlMprMDgBW-QYF2oJaFzFLcNG8vj5PhIZNx/110

S. Picture: http://www.google.be/imgres?q=%22HOUTAN+PARK%22+TURENSCAPE+AWARDS&um=1&hl=nl&safe=off&biw=1279&bih=680&tbm=isch&tbnid=2D7dmCTa-Hr YBM:&imgrefurl=http://ela-korea.com/ela/%3Fp%3D4684&docid=p0wpN7mLLVcbpM&imgurl=http://ela-korea.com/ela/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/0528.jpg&w=1816&h=2244 &ei=MNGnTtmVHYKf-QaK-sXQDw&zoom=1 R. Picture: http://cache0.bookdepository.co.uk/assets/images/book/medium/9783/0346/9783034607384.jpg Jamaica bay, study area report, internet, 26.10.11 http://www.nan.usace.army.mil/harbor/links/JamaicaBay_SAR_RevSep04.pdf Benefits of Regenerative City, internet, 26.10.11 http://www.futurepolicy.org/2871.html 6: Salt Marsh Report, Jamaica Bay, internet, 26.10.11 http://nbii-nin.ciesin.columbia.edu/jamaicabay/jbwppac/JBAC_NPS_SaltMarshReport_080207.pdf T. Picture: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S9HuLjVEqYg/TpSHA6zLIdI/AAAAAAAAorY/wYBF0TRywvc/s1600/jamaica+bay%252C+queens.jpg U. Picture: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2ssiTDreG4Y/S9PtPPez8QI/AAAAAAAAESw/Qb85NcqZbow/s400/jamaicabay_train_3903956946_d11f4fff08.jpg Ecological Urbanism, Mohsen Mostafavi, Lars Müller Publishers, 2010 A Review of the “State of the Bay” Jamaica Bay Scientific Symposium, internet, 26.10.11, http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/harborwater/jamaica_bay_symposium_recap.shtml Kongjian Yu, internet, 25.10.11, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kongjian_Yu Regenerative, thesaurus dictionary, internet, 24.10.11 http://www.thefreedictionary.com/regenerative

25

Is detroit the 'new brooklyn'?

Eva De Fré The current context of Detroit, with its abundance of vacant land, derelict industrial buildings and inexpensive housing is reminiscent of Brooklyn in the last decades of the 20th century, which was also plagued with a long period of emptiness and disinvestment. Since the early 2000s, however, Brooklyn received attention for its increasingly visible population of artists and its renewal and gentrification. Is Detroit the ‘New Brooklyn’?1 Detroit, as it is today, is a major topic among architects and artists, urban planners and the city government.

Each of these actors puts a different value on the fabric of Detroit and has foreseen a different future for the city. Artists tend to see the unique value of places deemed lost. They want to use the presences and invest in an alternative value, a new kind of ‘wealth’ that contains creativity, music, food and social interaction. However, their interventions often cause gentrification. Young professionals are attracted by the ‘coolness’ and atmosphere of this alternative lifestyle. Their advent often results in rising rents and the displacement of local inhabitants. The city department and real estate agents benefit from the gentrification unintentionally initiated by the artists. They rather wants to ‘solve’ the decline and decay of the current Detroit by investing in new development, that should restore the former success and prosperity of the city and attract new residents and wealth.

Detroit is the main city in the state of Michigan and known as the former automotive center of the world.

At its heyday in the 1950s, it was the fifth-largest city of the U.S.A., with a population of nearly 2 million people. However, suburbanization caused a flight out of the city, dislocating the middle class associated with the area’s motor industry. Large car companies moved out of the center into the cheaper industrial land of the suburbs and the city’s employment reached the trough. On top, Detroit is hit hard by the recent foreclosure crisis, that started in 2004 and continues today, causing an even bigger flight out of the city. During the past 50 years, the population of Detroit has halved, leading to a decline in tax base.

Revenue sharing on the state and federal levels continues to be cut.2 Vacant lots are filling an area as large as San Francisco and 33.000 empty houses are waiting to be inhabited.

By investigating a few initiatives, which involve different actors, such as architects, artists and the city government, this case study aims to explore how the different actors foresee the future of Detroit and how they deal with gentrification and vacancy. This analysis can be valuable to address other postindustrial (American) cities, or for example, parts of Brooklyn that are dealing with the advent of gentrification, such as Red Hook.

the detroit works project

Decades of depopulation have resulted in a lack of density that has crippled Detroit’s neighborhoods. ‘The national credit freeze is exacerbated by uncertainty about the valuation of real estate and other assets as loan collateral.’3 The mayor and City Department of Detroit are challenged to perceive an economical plan for the allocation of financial resources. On September 8, 2010 Mayor Dave Bing introduced ‘The Detroit Works Project’, a future plan with a participatory approach to redefine the physical, social and economic landscape of Detroit.

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is detroit the 'new brooklyn'?| Eva De Fré

According to Mayor Steve Bing, Detroit is in desperate need of a long-term strategy that addresses the challenges it is facing as a result of 50 years of decline and disinvestment.4 It’s the mayor’s attempt to create a new roadmap for the city’s future in consultation with the different communities. Thinking about this tobe urban layout, it came to notice that a shortterm plan was required to consolidate the neighborhoods during the creation of a longterm vision. By opening up a dialogue with the community and receiving comments on what should be the future direction of Detroit, the mayor tries to survey the current situation of the city. Complementing this personal information gathering with an objective Neighborhood Analysis leads to useful data to help make decisions on the allocation of resources. The Neighborhood Analysis examined the physical condition of the different neighborhoods and their present market trends. Assembling this information made it possible to define the neighborhoods in three different market types: steady, transitional and distressed.

The City will start subsidizing rehabilitation projects in steady and transitional areas.5 These areas have a good housing stock and the present market condition is able to support new

housing. Instead of only addressing subsidized projects, there’s also a focus on the existing built environment. Homeowners will be asked to live up to blight elimination requirements, such as the targeting of peeling paint, missing downspouts or debris-laden driveways. The Building, Safety, Engineering & Environmental Department will do survey inspections and issue correction orders to the owners who refuse the compliance of these requirements.

This proactive approach should help keep the steady and transitional markets of the city from falling into disrepair.6 Though, the connotation of steady or transitional neighborhood doesn’t imply the absence of vacant lots and derelict buildings. Improving those areas that is to say to come up with a strategy addressing this abandonment.

The city’s policy combines providing city services and tackling present vacancy in one plan called Program 14. With the abolition of the law obligating police officers to house in their work field in 1999, a Blue Flight was initiated. Today half of the police men lives outside the city. The program encourages them to return by giving them the opportunity to purchase a foreclosed house for as little as $1000 down. The tenements, currently property of the Detroit Land Bank Association, will be renovated using Neighborhood Stabilization Program funds.7 The intention is to repeat this strategy in the future for other public servants, such as firefighters and educators.

It is unlikely that part of the scarce city budget will be invested in distressed areas. The City Department states that it’s useless to put money into areas which cannot back up new development. Federal funds for housing developments are steered to some neighborhoods and away from desolate ones.8 However, the distressed neighborhoods aren’t totally neglected. The City Of Detroit’s General Services Department is guiding its contractors to cut vacant lots in underpopulated areas. Not the entire vacant lot is being tackled but a fiveto-15-foot window-pane around the perimeter of

the parcel gets cut. This measure was taken for safety and cost-saving for the future, when they rebid the vacant land.

City services are dissipated throughout the different neighborhoods, even the distressed ones, costing the city a lot of money. That’s why Mayor Dave Bing is aligning some city services, resources and investments solely in stable and transitional neighborhoods. By shrinking the city to the dense areas, leaving the in-between areas waiting for a better economy, he tries to save on city budget. This way of land banking forces inhabitants of distressed areas to move because they’re being cut off supplies. The mayor’s proposal has been criticized a lot.

Naturally people in distressed areas are angry and indignant, arguing that nobody is going to invest in their neighborhoods anymore.

Likewise developers, who already started the construction of some new buildings in these districts, could lose out on a lot of money. Even some residents of steady neighborhoods don’t agree with the densifiying of their districts. New inhabitants can purchase foreclosed dwellings for merely a few thousands of dollars, while they have to pay off mortgages of ten thousands of dollars and additionally get fined for chipped paint.

The effectiveness of these short-term policy is being watched in three demonstration areas: Hubbard Farms / Southwest, Boston Edison / North End / Virginia Park and Bagley / Golf Club / Green Acres / Palmer Woods / Sherwood Forest / University District. These three areas are selected because they contain steady, transitional as well as distressed markets.9 Debating with the community, asking them about the most necessary services to improve the livability of a neighborhood, should facilitate the fine-tuning for future approaches in other areas, according to Mayor Steve Bing. The short-term policy should help to inform the decision-making on the long-term vision.

29

detroit: a brooklyn case study

Artists and architects tend to work in the same field of urban experimentation, often in collaboration with each other. SUPERFRONT, directed by Mitch McEwen and Chloë Bass, is a venue for promoting those experiments between architects and other disciplines. Part of the goal of SUPERFRONT is to create a platform for the outside world to see “the amazing productivity, brilliance and cultural criticism happening within the context of architecture”.10 SUPERFRONT is located in New York (Brooklyn), Los Angeles and Detroit.

For the exhibition, Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, SUPERFRONT invited artists, architects, planners, urban designers and other practitioners to investigate the present situation of Detroit in form of research, design, photography, cartography and other media. According to Mitch McEwen, it is the extreme situation, almost the limit condition

30

is detroit the 'new brooklyn'?| Eva De Fré

of what a city may become, that makes Detroit critically significant as a case study of urbanism.11 Instead of analyzing Detroit as a singular object of study, the aim of the exhibition is to place Detroit in the broader context of the post-industrial (American) city.

By approaching this analysis as a Brooklyn case study, the investigation moves away from a universal position from which to view Detroit and tends to be ‘subjective, though not unanalytical’. Brooklyn becomes a side object of study, by which Detroit is compared and counter-compared. A dialogic exchange and misreading originates between the two cities.

12 SUPERFRONT wants to show that what the city of Detroit is experiencing at the local level, happens in every city at some moment in some place.13 If this investigation can reveal some of the basic mechanisms or actors in the studied situation, these mechanism and actors might be universalized or decoded in the terms of another specific city.

Example: ‘Uncultivated’, Lynn Cazabon At first sight, the photos of Lynn Cazabon seem to be images of Detroit’s abandonnement, but actually they show specific examples of urban plant life. ‘It is here that Detroit, Brooklyn and every other urban area share something in common: there are always places where wild plants thrive, despite expanses of heat trapping concrete, asphalt, pollution, and high CO2 levels.’14 For Cazabon, the extreme abandonment of Detroit offers an opportunity to study the relationship between plant life and materials of the built environment.15 Her photographs explore a kind of ‘universal science of urban weeds’ 16. She emphasizes that the urban layout of Detroit is different from that of Brooklyn. Detroit is more a western, sprawling city, that allows for expansion of wild plant life. In that manner Detroit is an extreme condition of what can happen, for example, in Brooklyn. In the same way ‘Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study’ could define a limit condition of crisis for all American cities.

31

The investigation of Detroit, however, can be dangerous.17 When architects or urban planners analyze a city’s fabric, they want to understand the composition of the tissue, the character of the built environment and its buildings and they try to represent their observations in plans, drawings and photographs. They automatically compare their object of study to the fabrics that they know. It is dangerous for urban researchers, based in Brooklyn, to recognize themselves in the urban condition of Detroit, and to identify themselves with the vacant land and desolate buildings that make up the city’s situation.18 If they do so, they may lapse into authority, claiming to know the city, or gentrification, wanting to ‘solve’ the problem. But the history and social relationships that make up a city, are never the same as in another city. The specificity of a place can never be generalized and assumed to be the same as somewhere else.

Artists and photographers tend to do the same, representing their investigation through a type of image-making, called ‘ruin-porn’.19 This form of representation focuses on the aesthetics and beautification of the desertion of the city, with its desolate buildings, taken back by nature.

The image-making is often criticized for being

32

is detroit the 'new brooklyn'?| Eva De Fré

over-simplified, over-consumed and undercritiqued. Besides the fact that the conditions of current Detroit shown in these representations, are real, the images don’t grasp the everyday environment, as a specific place with specific moments. The Detroit photographs of Andrew Moore, for example, tend to show the city as a given typology – ‘the abandoned city, the shrinking city, the reclaimed city’20 – but they don’t show the 713.777 residents21 that still live there. Detroiters stated that there was some disconnection between the foreign view on Detroit and the reality they experienced. ‘Art, culture and experimentation were at odds with the gritty realities of the city.’22 The danger of this cessation between analysis and reality, and, image and reality is that the process of gentrification may be encouraged and accelerated, by those who criticize it.

The pictures, that beautify the distressed city with its desolate buildings and cheap vacant land, without taken into account its daily life, may attract gentrifiers that want to have a share in the uniqueness of this place (as it is represented). Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study’ tries to reconfigure the relationship between the urban typology and local specificity.

Example: ‘Please Describe’, by Amanda Matles Amanda Matles investigates the relationship between the romanticization of modern ruins, or ‘ruin porn’ and people in close, lived, proximity to the site (of the ruin). In a videotaped inquiry, she asks inhabitants of Detroit about the often photographed James Scott Mansion. One of the interviewees in the video states, “It looks better on the screen than it does just standing there”.23 Matles is interested in thinking critically about the difference between ‘standing’ near the building and the experience of looking ‘on the screen’. As a cultural producer, she wants to image the city together with the people who reside in that city. She rather wants to make “something agitational than serene and empty”24. In Matles’ opinion, this is a way to counter a part of the gentrification paradigm. remark: But is this type of representation not equally problematic as ruin porn itself? This ‘people ruin porn’ makes the local residents, the poor people that have to life in between these desolate buildings and wild plant life.25 Creating a kind of empathy can as well attract artists, architects and urban planners that want to create a better environment for inhabitants of Detroit.

A video that criticizes the aesthetization of Detroit buildings and puts them in contrast with the 700.000 people still living there, might form a perfect subterfuge for real estate developers to come and ‘solve the bad living conditions’ by creating new housing and investing in new development. Their efforts may actually result in rising rents and the displacement of local residents.

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Although SUPERFRONT appoints the danger of equating Detroit and Brooklyn, they also question whether Detroit will become the ‘New Brooklyn’.The juxtaposition of Detroit and Brooklyn imagines one city becoming the other.26 While Detroit is seen as a city gone to waste, Brooklyn managed to survive its image as desolate, second-range borough and has been exemplified not only as a success, but as a globally marketable brand.27 This success was widely spread in the Brooklyn borough, through the process of gentrification.

Abandoned neighborhoods became attractive to artists for their large, available spaces. The

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advent of these ‘creatives’ conformed a new viability in the distressed areas, luring young professionals and hipsters that wanted to enjoy this new ambience. Will Detroit equally gentrify as Brooklyn and become a city of success? Is Detroit even more susceptible for gentrification because of its greater availability of space? It is by formulating these extreme hypotheses that ‘we begin to see what else exist in each place and what has developed from that which fits outside the box’28. Chloë Bass made a comparison of gentrifying restaurants in both Brooklyn and Detroit and recognized the dissimilarities at the local scale.29

Example: ‘Building Cities Bite by Bite’, by Chloë Bass Chloë Bass studied Detroit by comparing it to Brooklyn, through two popular restaurants; Roberta’s in Bushwick (Brooklyn) and Slow Bar BQ’s in Detroit. “In Brooklyn”, she says, “we measure change in food.” The advent of gentrification is indicated even before rent starts to rise, through more subtle signs, like the presence of bio-product in the local supermarket or locally brewed beer in bars. Roberta’s opened on a formerly industrial stretch of Moore Street in January, 2008. The restaurant serves pizzas, a typical Brooklyn dish from historical point of view.

The toppings of the pizzas change with the seasons, in order to have fresh ingredients. Although the customers are mostly white, the restaurant has a wide influence in the area. Slow Bar BQ’s opened in 2005 across the street from Detroit’s famously abandoned Central Station and is a barbecue-restaurant, associated with the workers from the South in the automotive industry.

They serve sustainable meat, but also vegetarian dishes. Due to their menu and the prices, their customers are across race and class lines. Both restaurants are becoming a destination in an area that has long been avoided. Remarkable is the side activities of both the restaurants and their investments in the community. Aside running a restaurants, the owners of Roberta opened a urban farm and want to invest in a banquet hall for community parties. Their efforts have remained largely around food. Slows owners opened a coffee shop, but are also serving on the board for the Detroit Works Project (see below) and a handful of other organizations. They want to use their profits to fund parks projects, etc. One of the owners, Phill Cooley, is known as an ambassador for the new Detroit. The customers of Roberta’s and Slow are mainly middle class people, who don’t need this kind of community investment projects to develop decaying urban sites. Thus, these restaurants “represent not (only) the negative elements of class shifts and gentrification but, quite, simply, cash flow: money for the meal and more to support further (community) initiatives”30. In Brooklyn the competition is rising and lots of money is drained away from these projects into media attention and custom luring. Detroit, on the other hand, does not suffer from competition; the availability of space and relatively low incidence of new major projects allows for new businesses to originate and to take upon unrelated arenas. Today Brooklyn is the place to be. But Chloë Bass states that Detroit may be superior to Brooklyn: ‘Slows is a vision of what Brooklyn has become, but better.’

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Will Detroit become the ‘New Brooklyn’ or will the city evolve differently? The future of Detroit seems to depend on its ‘authors’.

Artist residencies, satellite institutions, offices, tourism, journalism, etc., can form the image of a city. Mitch McEwen questions whether we can separate the production of urban ideas from the production of urban authority. 31 Is it justified that the authority of an artist, architect,

urban planner or city department determines the urban layout? Therefore, in order to seriously study Detroit, the related configuration of power should be analyzed. This case study, Is Detroit the New Brooklyn?, tries to visualize different actors, influencing the city planning of Detroit.

Freeland Buck, on the other hand, created a design tool, that rules out all actors of authority.

Example: ‘Superdivision Detroit’, by Freeland Buck Freeland Buck questions authority in the design process of Detroit. He proposes a system or tool, rather than a design. This tool seems to relinquish design authority. His Superdivision project deploys an algorithm as the generator of plan to re-organize Detroit as a network of rural zones and highly dense zones, interspersed.32 Instead of living up to the expectations of Detroit as the successful ‘New Brooklyn’, his design allows Detroit to remain essentially Detroit.

In his project he envisions Detroit in 2060, not as a successful and newly developed ‘place to be’, but rather as an increasingly shrinking city, conforming to its current status. Since Detroit’s infrastructure is built for over 1,5 million people and is now only serving 800 000 inhabitants, he proposes a strategy for re-territorialization rather than construction. He suggests to form new, super-scaled and occupied territories33, that are bounded by hedgerows. ‘An algorithmic and interactive tree planting in publicly owned parcels will form a connective network of trails and a set of preliminary boundaries, scaling up the existing patterns of property ownership to suit the collapsing population.’34 Based on recent data of housing demolishon and population density, the algorithm increases the hedgerow planting as vacancy rates go up. The uninhabited land is transformed into community gardens, agricultural land or forest, that enclose the remaining houses and increase the viability of the neighborhoods. remark: The outcome of Buck’s proposal to stabilize home ownership into archipelagos of dense neighborhoods is reminiscent of the ‘Detroit Works Project’ of Mayor Steve Bing. Though the two projects couldn’t be more contradictory as to ‘authority’. Does the research of Freeland Buck implicates the significance of the proposed strategy by Mayor Bing?

The project, proposed by Buck, is a tool replacing design authority. The tool focuses on a continuation of the current state of Detroit in the future. It does not seek to transform Detroit into a more successful city and it doesn’t want to solve the existing ‘problems’. ‘Rather than resisting the city’s decreasing population, the Superdivision tool channels and manages that depopulation, eventually stabilizing home ownership into archipelagos of dense neighborhoods.’

35 Mayor Bing, on the other hand, wants to densify the viable neighborhoods, by forcing the inhabitants of distressed areas to move. He does so by cutting the desolate parts of the city off supplies. His motivation is that successful neighborhoods in Detroit are able to support new development. He believes that this reorganization of inhabitants into denser neighborhoods will trigger new development. He hopes that the new quarters will eventually expand until they touch upon each other again. He envisions Detroit in the future, equally successful as the Detroit of the past.

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loveland technologies

In 2009 Jerry Paffendorf, a young web developer, and Mary Carter, an artist / librarian, founded LOVELAND Technologies.

The idea began with the current context of Detroit, a city with a 40 percent vacancy rate.

Paffendorf and Carter wanted to bring the citizens of the city back together through a new kind of social ownership.36 They founded an online website that allows users to virtually purchase one square inch of land in Detroit for one dollar. Initially the project started off as a virtual Second Life-like ‘game’, but after enough fundraising, LOVELAND was able to buy an actual piece of land at 8887 East Vernor Highway, Detroit. The first microhood, called Plymouth, is a 10.000 square inch area, owned by 588 proprietors. Purchasing this non-

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traditionally sized parcels with no future use in mind, is reminiscent of the ‘Fake Estates’ of Gordon Matta-Clark. Though, for the latter the act of buying was of primordial importance, while in the case of Loveland also the creation of a social network for discussing space and geography is valuable. By ‘inchvesting’ users get access to an online community, where they can express ideas on new city development.

By communicating with other owners as well as with the neighbors of the actual lot, an interesting dialogue is going on changing Detroit’s urban landscape through community maps and fundraising.

Due to the success of the first microhood, LOVELAND was able to start a second

microhood, called Hello World. Only this time, they were approaching it differently. The asset of LOVELAND is that it is “a collaborative way for people all over the world to participate in a project”. Paffendorf and Carter started to wonder why they couldn’t extend their strategy to other projects in Detroit. Since then, half of the fundraising money collected through the ‘inchvesting’, is put into community grants. One of the granted local projects is a giant outdoor sculpture of a cat, designed to help revitalize the area around a key pedestrian overpass.37 Other grants have gone to the renovation of dilapidated townhouses that turned into crime havens or a series of online documentaries called “Detroit Lives!”. After a call from Jeff DeBruyn, a community organizer and president of the Corktown Residents’ Council, LOVELAND bought a pair of abandoned houses for $500 apiece near the old Michigan Central Railroad station. The goal is to transform this buildings together with the community into public art exhibition space, digital media center and smallbusiness incubator.38 Although Jerry Paffendorf called the project ‘Imagination Station’, he says the city needs more than imaginative ideas, it is in need for practical action. By funding community initiatives Paffendorf and Carter

want to make people aware that what they ‘inchvest’ in the Loveland project, they get back through grants.

The problem is that the terrain for this practical action or community projects, is not well documented. Being partially artist collective and non-profit foundation, LOVELAND also acts as consulting firm. By mapping different city data, they want to make information accessible, understandable and keep Detroiters up to date. In a first project, called ‘Why Don’t We Own This?’ they constructed a map identifying Detroit’s many foreclosed houses and vacant lots that are up for auction at the 2011 Wayne County Foreclosure Auction. This map is a tool to open up the auction process, help people understand and facilitate active investment in the reemerging city of Detroit.39 On the website people can zoom in on the parcels or discover the $500 properties up for auction, show their interest, ask questions or communicate with other bidders. Sharing interests and goals before the action might encourage partnerships and co-operation, preventing unintentional bidding wars. The project should help coordinate the most locally beneficial auction results.40

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Another data-mapping project is named ‘Living in the map’. According to Paffendorf Detroit really needs a fine-grained digital social map to inform Mayor Dave Bing in resizing the city (see ‘The Detroit Works Project’).41 Right now the City Department is developing a future vision for Detroit by land banking and steering city services in the remaining healthy neighborhoods, without any maps.42 By using the same social map system as for the Micro Real Estates and applying it to the whole city, the process of land consolidation could be facilitated. The map would allow to see information on the ownership of lots, to search for the social, economic and environmental indicators of the different neighborhoods and to comment every parcel, neighborhood or the entire city, causing a conversation between citizens about their future visions for Detroit.

The project brings together LOVELAND’s experience in virtual mapmaking with its fostering of the social network and its concern for urban rehabilitation.43

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The Loveland website appears to be an innovative online concept in showing that’s there’s no difference between an inch and a house or a microhood and a neighborhood, except scale; in leading to interesting interdisciplinary communication and social networks and in consulting residents with realtime data. The premeditation of microhoods seems to question the authority of architects, urban planners and city departments in city planning, and is reminiscent of Freeland Buck’s Superdivision project. By letting people from all over the world, buy a piece of land to share their proposals for the future of Detroit, they tend to relinquish authority or divided into an infinite number of particles. However, LOVELAND decided to uses the profit made by their microhood projects to subsidize community projects, that are designed by ‘someone’ (unknown). Although in consultation with the community, these design projects are determined by someone with authority.

conclusion By investigating a few initiatives in Detroit, this case study aims to observe how a post-industrial city is ‘made’. An important tendency and challenge can be observed. The way in which a city is analyzed or represented seems crucial for its future development. The representation or artification can be considered a gentrification process. The way in which a spatial actor, such as an architect, urban planner, or city department, denounces its thoughts for the city’s future, plays a key role in the perception of others about that future. This observation can be valuable to address other post-industrial (American) cities, or for instance, parts of Brooklyn that are dealing with the advent of gentrification, such as Red Hook.

Analysis While analyzing a city, most of the time the main focus is on the research of urban typology and morphology. A post-industrial city is being characterized by its industrial buildings, empty premises and vacant lots and is often assumed to be susceptible for gentrification. In ‘Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study’, Chloë Bass approaches Detroit as being superior to Brooklyn in terms of gentrification, due to its extreme abundance of space. Her viewpoint might be an oversimplification, but she states it’s by adopting an extreme position, that we can grasp what else exist in a place and what has developed from that which fits outside the box.44 The phenomenon of gentrification is often approximated as a negative phenomenon but in her comparison of two popular restaurants, that can be seen as a result of this gentrification, she finds that these restaurants actually invest a lot of their assets in the existing community. Therefore, it’s also important to survey the local specificity of a city; its inhabitants, active social life and relations, etc, to really understand the city. Steve Bing, the mayor of Detroit, also manages an alternative urban analysis to form a short and long term vision on the development of the city. He uses the objectivity of a Neighborhood Analysis, together with personal interviews in local communities, to investigate the current situation of his city and to understand future needs. Jerry Paffendorf of LOVELAND Technologies also tries to develop a new manner of understanding an urban fabric. Through his digital maps, he wants to offer (future) residents, the city department and even architects, etc. a tool for information gathering on the context of Detroit. He wants to emphasize the present inhabitants, initiatives and fluxes, already going on. Next to containing data on city land and neighborhoods, the map could be complemented with a layer of discussion, allowing for residents to comment the present condition of Detroit or to discuss the future vision for the city. Paffendorf argues that the map could be a great help for the city government in providing an urban vision for Detroit.

Artists, architects and policy makers tend to search for a new way of analyzing the living environment and the every-day life of city residents. Reviewing the different examples, a tendency towards the same ideas on renewed analysis, however through different methods, can be noticed. By critically reviewing each other’s methods and complementing one another’s idea, the different actors could initiate an interdisciplinary approach to envision the to-be urban lay-out of Detroit. The city can become the playground for a policy in which the collaboration between city government and socially engaged architects and artists can imply meaningful urban planning.

Representation To counter the paradigm of gentrification, it also seems important to challenge the manners of representing a city - in this case, the city of Detroit. The reviewed examples take in different positions towards their representation of the city and their goals for the city’s future. Two manners

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of envisioning Detroit can be distinguished. First of all we can define the artists that use Detroit as an object of art and praise the city for its controversial, marginal character. These artists give no indication that they want to enhance the status quo. An example is ‘ruin porn’, the prominent form of imagemaking that is used by photographer Andrew Moore to represent Detroit. This manner of representation romanticizes the desolate and derelict condition of Detroit and neglects the everyday life of the city and its (residual) 800 000 inhabitants. The designation ‘ruin porn’ concisely highlights the inverted role between pleasure and presence.45 Due to the aestheticization of the current situation of Detroit, new inhabitants, real estate developers or even architects, often with ‘bad intentions’, are attracted. We can question whether the pictures of Lynn Cazabon don’t do the same.

On the other hand a group of socially engaged artists and architects can be distinguished, that by creating new mapping methods (LOVELAND), investigating socially rooted initiatives (Chloë Bass) or thinking of alternative urban strategies (Freeland Buck) are willing to improve the cityscape, in any way. Even Freeland Buck, emphasizing that the situation of Detroit might increasingly deteriorate in the future, is thinking on how the city, in this process of decline, can continue to provide a high quality of life for its residents. SUPERFRONT thinks that it is important to change our way of analyzing a city and distributing our knowledge. One of the goals is to reconfigure the relationship between the urban typology and local specificity of a city (see above), such as Detroit. Maybe a new type of representation that underscores the presences in a city, can be a way to create a respectful relation between the artist, the gentrifier and the local community.

Authority Detroit is, in a way, a product of mediatization. Through different forms of representation an image of the city of Detroit is shaped, imagined and materialized through enacting various authorities. We can question whether Detroit is Detroitized and who made it that way.46 This is a question of ‘authority’ which is associated with the problem of ‘representation’. Artist residencies, satellite institutions, offices, tourism and journalism can be considered (tools of) authorities. For example: by photographing Detroit, and showing the beautification of its desolate and derelict character, a photographer can give outsiders an idea of Detroit. Though, these pictures don’t show the 800 000 inhabitants that still live in Detroit. Can we say the photographer is responsible for the image-making that attracts gentrifiers?

The aesthetization of the current condition of Detroit, might imply that the city is a playground for experimentation with its cheap land and empty buildings. Detroit is (indirectly) envisioned as a to-behotspot or a successful “New Brooklyn”. This image-making is most probably dangerous, because it excludes the existing urban life of the city and envisions a future for Detroit, that the city must pursue.

However, its future can as well be one of continuing decline in population. It is with this future vision in mind, that Freeland Buck, proposes an algorithmic Superdivision project that seems to relinquish design authority. His algorithm generated a plan to re-organize Detroit as a network of rural zones and highly dense zones. Morphologically this project looks a lot like The Detroit Works Project of Mayor Steve Bing, although at first sight, both the projects seem contradictory as to ‘authority’. Freeland Buck wants to free his design of any form of authority, however his proposal to connect enclaves of dense population with urban farms and hedgerows, equally consist of a sort of ‘design authorship’.

Thereby, in each of the discussed projects a form of authority can be distinguished. In order to succeed in any of these projects, authority might even be essential. It is of great importance, however, that this manner of authorship is socially grounded in an elaborated analysis and background research and that the manner in which the project is represented is given considerable thought.

The question remains whether Detroit will develop, measured by itself and not by the expectations of other places or whether the image of Detroit as the ‘New Brooklyn’ has already evolved to much.

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footnotes 1.

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DENCKLA, D., “DEsTROyIT”, in SUPERFRONT, Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, Blurb, s.l., 2011, pp 30-33 information from X., “Detroit Works Project”, retrieved on October 26, 2011, from http://detroitworksproject.com/ id. id. id. id.

MABREY, V., “Detroit’s Project 14”, retrieved on October 26, 2011, from http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2011/02/ detroits-project-14 information from X., “Detroit Works Project”, retrieved on October 26, 2011, from http://detroitworksproject.com/ id. a conversation with Mitch McEwen, URBAN OMNIBUS, “Superfront”, retrieved on October 26, 2011, from http://www. youtube.com/ “When selecting a case for a case study, researchers often use information-oriented sampling, as opposed to random sampling.

This is because an average case is often not the richest in information. Extreme or atypical cases reveal more information because they activate more basic mechanisms and more actors in the situation studied.” McEWEN, M., “Other Peoples’s Cities”, in SUPERFRONT, Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, Blurb, s.l., 2011, p3 information from McEWEN, M., “Other Peoples’s Cities”, in SUPERFRONT, Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, Blurb, s.l., 2011, p4 SUPERFRONT, “Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study”, retrieved on October 26, 2011, from http://vimeo.com/15978508 CAZABON, L., “Uncultivated”, in SUPERFRONT, Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, Blurb, s.l., 2011, p48 McEWEN, M., “Other Peoples’s Cities”, in SUPERFRONT, Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, Blurb, s.l., 2011, p3 CAZABON, L., “Uncultivated”, in SUPERFRONT, Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, Blurb, s.l., 2011, p48 McEWEN, M., “Other Peoples’s Cities”, in SUPERFRONT, Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, Blurb, s.l., 2011, p1 “It is most probably dangerous for an architect to undertake the research of Detroit […] Especially from the vantage point of New York and – worse- Brooklyn, that harbinger of grit-asglamour urbanism.” (McEWEN, M., “Other Peoples’s Cities”, in SUPERFRONT, Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, Blurb, s.l., 2011, p1) “From BBC journalism to fine art photography ruin porn depicts emptiness and disaster, failed relics of an industrial era and abandoned buildings as spectacle.” McEWEN, M., “Other Peoples’s Cities”, in SUPERFRONT, Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, Blurb, s.l., 2011, p2 SUPERFRONT, “Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study”, retrieved on October 26, 2011, from http://losangeles.superfront.org/ “In 2010, the city had a population of 713,777.” (X., Detroit, retrieved on April 20, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org) WASACZ, W., “What’s next for Detroit: Investing in the passion for place” , retrieved on October 26, 2011, from http://www. modeldmedia.com MATLES, A., “Please Describe”, in SUPERFRONT, Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, Blurb, s.l., 2011, p74 id.

Comment by Ward Verbakel McEWEN, M., “Other Peoples’s Cities”, in SUPERFRONT, Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, Blurb, s.l., 2011, p7 BASS, C., “From Small Plates to Big Purpose: Building Cities Bite

by Bite”, in SUPERFRONT, Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, Blurb, s.l., 2011, p12 BASS, C., “From Small Plates to Big Purpose: Building Cities Bite

by Bite”, in SUPERFRONT, Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, Blurb, s.l., 2011, p13 However the comparison of Detroit and Brooklyn can be dangerous, she keeps in mind the city’s local specificity.

BASS, C., “From Small Plates to Big Purpose: Building Cities Bite

by Bite”, in SUPERFRONT, Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, Blurb, s.l., 2011, p15 McEWEN, M., “Other Peoples’s Cities”, in SUPERFRONT, Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, Blurb, s.l., 2011, p6

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McEWEN, M., “Other Peoples’s Cities”, in SUPERFRONT, Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, Blurb, s.l., 2011, p7 BUCK, F., “Superdivision Detroit”, in SUPERFRONT, Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, Blurb, s.l., 2011, p64 Id. Id. CARTER, M., PAFFENDORF, J., “How Big Can You Make an Inch?”, in SUPERFRONT, Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, Blurb, s.l., 2011, p24 ROUSH, W., “The Disney-sized imaginations at Loveland are out to reverse Detroit’s decay with digital maps”, retrieved on October 26, 2011, from http://www.xconomy.com/ Id. CARTER, M., PAFFENDORF, J., “Why Don’t We Own This?”, retrieved on October 26, 2011, from http://makeloveland.com/ Id. ROUSH, W., “The Disney-sized imaginations at Loveland are out to reverse Detroit’s decay with digital maps”, retrieved on October 26, 2011, from http://www.xconomy.com/ Id. Id. BASS, C., “From Small Plates to Big Purpose: Building Cities Bite

by Bite”, in SUPERFRONT, Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, Blurb, s.l., 2011, p13 McEWEN, M., “Other Peoples’s Cities”, in SUPERFRONT, Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, Blurb, s.l., 2011, p2 McEWEN, M., “Other Peoples’s Cities”, in SUPERFRONT, Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, Blurb, s.l., 2011, p6

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The Atlantic Yards Project Antrees Engelen The Atlantic Yards Project in Brooklyn is an exceptional urban redevelopment. It has a significant symbolic meaning for its surroundings, and Brooklyn in general. Yet there are a lot of uncertainties, concerns and critiques about it.

Source: Google Maps

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The Atlantic Yards Project

| Antrees Engelen

INTRODUCTION The Atlantic Yards Project in Brooklyn is a well-known urban redevelopment, it is one of the aspects of the ambitious vision of mayor Bloomberg for New York City in PlaNYC 2030.

(7) It would revive this area of Brooklyn, adjacent to the vivid Downtown Brooklyn. It would also be the reintroduction of a sports representative for the borough of Brooklyn by bringing the New Jersey Nets to Brooklyn, making them the Brooklyn Nets. Which gives

the project, and its flagship the arena, a considerable symbolic meaning. Yet there are some uncertainties about who and what they are designing. One thing is certain: Forest City Ratner is the developer. But who is the architect after the departure of Frank Gehry in 2009?

How big is the actual project? What is its scale?

When will it be finished? One can visually see the protest against it in Brooklyn, but who are the organizations behind the banners? And most importantly, why are they protesting? Etc‌

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Sources: http://www.barclayscenter.com/about/about_fcrc.shtml; http://www.esd.ny.gov/index.html; http://www.ellerbebecket.com/contact/ offices/index. html; http://www.shoparc.com/#

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The Atlantic Yards Project

| Antrees Engelen

WHAT? WHERE? BY WHO? WHAT? The Atlantic Yards Project is a 4,9 billion dollar project. It consists of the Arena for the Brooklyn Nets –an NBA basketball team-,16 mixed-used buildings for residential purpose, ground level retail space, office, community facilities, also approximately 3670 permanent parking spaces and maybe some hotel uses. In these buildings, spread around the site, there will be about 5325 to 6430 housing units, with 2250 of them rental units affordable to low-, moderate-, and middleincome households. Surrounding the buildings, there will be eight acres of open public space, which will link the surrounding neighborhoods to

each other. The LIRR (Long Island Rail Road) train yard -which provided for the name of the project, combined with the adjacent Atlantic Avenue and the Atlantic Terminal- will also be reconfigured with advanced rail storage.

The density, height and commercial uses will be concentrated at the western part of the site, so that this will reflect the higher density of Downtown Brooklyn to the north.

The entire project is divided in time into two phases, as proposed by the Empire State Development. (20), (10)

WHERE? The site of the project is located in Brooklyn, New York City. It is part of the lively neighborhood of Prospect Heights, and adjacent to the other, sociable neighborhoods of Fort Greene and Park Slope. It is bounded by the Atlantic Avenue to the north, Vanderbilt Avenue to the east, Dean and Pacific Street to the south

and the Flatbush Avenue to the west. There is also a small part of the project in the west, outside these boundaries, called Site 5.

The project site is placed on top of a large transportation axis of New York City, by doing so it is directly linked to nine subway lines and the LIRR. (22)

WHO? Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC) -a subsidiary of Forest City Enterprises, one of the biggest national real estate companies- is the main developer for the entire project.(19) Remarkable about this project is that it isn’t started by the city government, what is plausible for big city projects, but was launched solely by a development firm. Forest City Ratner Companies, one of the leading urban real estate developers in New York City, is based in Brooklyn. It has been the developer, and is the present owner, of eleven million square feet of commercial property in New York City. (22), (7) As a monitor of the construction and to make sure that the FCRC follows the environmental regulations –these take the construction impacts for the nearby communities into account, so that they are as minimal as possible-, there

is the Empire State Development (ESD), the New York State’s principal agent for economic development.(20) Responsible for the design of the Arena, the flagship of the entire project, are the architects Ellerbe Becket and SHoP Architects.

Ellerbe Becket is a firm, with offices all over the world, known for some of the most famous sport facilities. Some numbers are: 17 stadiums, 22 arenas, including fifteen new arenas for the NBA and the renovation of the Madison Square Garden in New York City.

They are collaborating with SHoP Architects, a New York based firm, known for designing the East River Waterfront at the South Street Seaport. SHoP Architects’ goal is to clarify that the esthetic and the technical part of a design aren’t always mutually exclusive.(19)

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Phase I

Source: http://www.atlanticyards.com/

Source: http://www.shoparc.com/#/projects/featured

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The Atlantic Yards Project

| Antrees Engelen

PHASE I The area of the first phase can be known as the ‘Arena Block’, it contains the Arena, a plaza named ‘the Urban Room’, three mixed-income residential buildings and a commercial tower -named B1-, an update of the MTA (LIRR) Rail Yard and a new subway entrance. There will also be an environmental remediation of the project site. (19) The entire Phase 1 should be completed by 2014.(10) The Arena, christened as the ‘Barclays Center’ after its main sponsor, is the most iconic part of the entire design. Two architect firms are collaborating on this enormous building, previously mentioned Ellerbe Becket and SHoP Architects. It will contain 18.000 seats for basketball games and up to 19.000 seats for concerts. Above that, there will be 100 luxury suites, 40 loge boxes, 6 clubs and restaurants and the Nets practice facility.(19) Those concerts will be performances by artists selected by the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). Creating a programming alliance between the two institutions.(14)

The Arena, approximately 46 meters tall, will be innovative in its look, by using weathered steel and a lot of glass. The construction is made of three separate woven bands, which all have a different direction. One band is mainly located on the ground floor, creating a sense of visual transparency. It transforms into a grand canopy –almost 9 meters above ground level- which contains an oculus. Combined with large areas of glass, the oculus will allow pedestrians to peek inside the Arena and get a view of the scoreboard from the Urban Room or walking down Flatbush Avenue.

The official opening of the Barclays Center is planned to happen in September 2012, by coowner for a small part, superstar Jay-Z.(19)

The plaza ’Urban Room’, designed by SHoP Architects has the intention to connect the Arena to the nearby neighborhood, it will provide the access to the Barclays Center. It will also integrate a new subway entrance giving it access to 10 subway lines. For the residential buildings, about 1.005 to 2.110 units will be created and at least 30% -no less than 300- of these units will be affordable. (10)

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Source: http://www.shoparc.com/#/projects/featured

Source: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/251692/20111117/forest-city-ratner-shop-unveil-atlantic-yards.htm

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The Atlantic Yards Project

| Antrees Engelen

SHoP Architects will be designing the first three residential towers with the help of the structural engineering firm XSite Modular. The actual design of the first tower, named B2, was announced on 17 November 2011. It will be a 32 storey high building including 350 units, placed at the right of the Barclays Center and located at the junction of the Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street.(10),(1) The building will consist of a plurality of different upright beams. The exterior of the building will be executed with a wide variety of different materials, colors, textures,... And the covered entrances at street level will be integrated with their surroundings using full story storefronts made out of glass.

The tower will be constructed with a prefabricated, modular steel structure. It will be the tallest existing building constructed that way.

The construction of the first tower is planned for the first quarter of 2012. But the start date could vary. And it should take about eighteen months to finish.

The second residential tower is planned to be even taller, approximately 50 storeys high. (1), (24)

Various community facilities will also be built, for Phase 1 this will be a health care clinic.(10)

The Update of the MTA Rail Yard will be located below street level, on the eastern end of the now existing rail yard –between Atlantic Avenue, Vanderbilt Avenue, Pacific Street and 6th Avenue. Its purpose is to create new jobs and a new signal system, improving the Yard’s functionality. Above the Upgraded Yard, there will be a platform serving as a roof for the LIRR and as a base for the development happening in Phase 2.(10) Before the completion and the opening of the Arena some permanent roadway changes are needed. Those changes are only a small part of the traffic mitigation plan, explained in the Final Environmental Impact Statement.(20)

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Phase II

Source: http://www.atlanticyards.com/

Design of Laurie Olin, Source: http://www.theolinstudio.com/flash#/projects/type/brooklyn-atlantic-yards

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The Atlantic Yards Project

| Antrees Engelen

Rendering of the “interim� parking.

Source: http://www.brooklynspeaks.net/node/6

PHASE II Phase 2 could easily be seen as the part of the Project Site east of 6th Avenue, it includes eleven buildings with particularly residential uses but with a number of local retail on ground level as well and some community facilities.

It will also contain the platform building path, which will be built in the Air Space, at the Platform Elevation.(10) One of those community facilities is a public school (the “School”). FCRC will be obliged to construct this school, by the New York School Construction Authority, the New York Department of Education, collectively the “DOE”. Linked to the School is eight acres of open public space, only for use by the School during school hours, but it will be open for the general public outside of these hours seven days a week, with tolerable closing hours and reasonable security measures. It will have several playing courts, playgrounds, walking paths, etc. A small part of this open space will be exclusive for the School.

This open space was planned to be designed by landscape architect Laurie Olin, as an environmentally sustainable, publicly accessible open space.(22) But since the departure of Gehry as main architect of the Barclay Center in

2009, the design of Laurie Olin is no longer valid as it was linked to Gehry’s design.

There are also plans for an intergenerational community center for publicly funded day care, taking care of a minimum of hundred children.

(10)

The average height of the buildings will gradually decrease towards the Vanderbilt Avenue (towards the east), following along the Atlantic Avenue. But there will be more residential buildings and a reduced density on the site.

Phase 2 is planned to be fully constructed by 2019.(10) The only problem is that Phase 2 will only start when the developer believes that the market conditions are positive enough and will favor further development. This could take many more years than the originally planned ten years. In the meantime, the only thing that will be built is the Arena and possibly the previously mentioned residential tower of SHoP Architects.

As for the rest, a massive parking lot will be laid out, serving as an “interim” parking. And this interim parking could remain in place for over fifteen years. (17)

55

Source: http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/movies/battle-for-brooklyn-review.html, by Tracy Collins Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tracy_collins/2464770348/,

by Tracy Collins

Source: http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/34/46/dtg_yardsjobssuit_2011_11_18_bk.html, by Bess Adler

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The Atlantic Yards Project

| Antrees Engelen

Source:http://www.brownstoner.com/blog/2009/10/dddb-walkathon-1/,

by Tracy Collins

CRITICISM There were/are a lot of opponents of the Atlantic Yards Project. They all want the same things: economic development, jobs and a healthy development so that the public can benefit from it. This is happening without any delay, within the next few years, as is needed.(17)

Some of the main public opponents are BrooklynSpeaks, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) and websites like noLandGrab, the Atlantic Yards Report, etc. who give a critical analysis, comments and reports.

(18),(8) And also a strong adversary is local councilwoman Letitia James. Most of the opposition groups were seen as led by middle-class whites, except for Miss James, while the prime supporters of the project in the community were black. The two main proponents groups were the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and the Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development (BUILD), both interested in the concerns of working families, the poor minorities. One of the leaders of ACORN, now NY Communities for Change (NYCC), accentuated the previously mentioned statement by adding: “The overwhelming folks who are opposed are white people and more secure people who just arrived.” Important in this argument is the introduction of the Gentrifiers, which is a term used for people who come and live in neighborhoods which are enhanced on social, cultural and economic level. This revaluation is accompanied by a rise in property prices, which leads to a flight of the poor and often associated with an increase of the middle and upper-class whites.

Later on it was discovered that these organizations were sponsored by Forest City Ratner itself. (7), (13)

One of the primary critiques was the fact that they succeeded in labeling a number of buildings, which were in good condition, as eminent domain. By doing so they created the opportunity to demolish them. Some of those properties involved a historic industrial construction and a newly renovated apartment building. The reason why it was possible for FCRC to just take those properties was the cooperation with The Empire State Development. The ESD is an agency of state government, thus is has the power to alter local land use laws, override zoning. And by doing so they didn’t need the public participation for endorsement of the major project, which is required with local land use laws.

Additionally, some had the opinion that the new buildings would damage the character of the overall low-rise Brooklyn. And also the need to eliminate streets that before Atlantic Yards crossed the site was negatively received. (7), (13) Even during the construction process, a series of strong opponents are being formed.

The recent developments around the newly designed residential towers created many reactions. The main aspect of criticism is caused by the prefabrication of the tower. By working with prefabrication the overall cost will be slimmed by 25 percent, but the amount of offered jobs will also be reduced. About 60 percent of the construction will take place in a factory. And at this moment, union workers in a factory earn less than half of what is paid working on site. (1)

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Source: http://www.developdontdestroy.org/php/latestnews_ArchiveDate.php

Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB), founded in February 2004 is a non-profit organization, run by volunteers and completely funded by the community. It is the leader of a broad-based community alliance.

“The community already exists. We need to develop it, not destroy it.”(18) DDDB has a lot of accomplishments: community outreach and collaborations with other organizations, research, political outreach and public relations, alternative plans and finally also legal initiatives.

One example of the researches of DDDB is about the concern of ‘Instant Gentrification’.

It explains that the lowest-income families will no longer have a place to live, because they will not be able to afford a housing unit in the Atlantic Yards Project.(18)

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The Atlantic Yards Project

| Antrees Engelen

DDDB has also a very personal struggle fight agaa the abuse of the state’s power of single emin domain-taking from one owner in favor about of private entity, in this case FCRC, for about a priv use instead of the expected publicand use,d particular. It’s personal because oneimpac of founders of DDDB, Daniel Goldstein,of wa pe victim of this abuse. Mr. Goldstein wasOur thefi person to walk away from his apartment given on site of the Atlantic Yards. This was necess to in for the project because the deal couldn’t united cl when there were still people with owners regard living there. But after seven years of figh against FCRC, he couldn’t do anything e than to give in. He received a financial settlement, which will be used mostly for his legal costs, and agreed to step down as a spokesman for DDDB, but held on to his First Amendments rights, freedom of speech. (18), (9), (8) His statement following his settlement showed his opinion very clearly: “Finally, please remember that DDDB, this community and the

TITEL

ainst against Atlantic Yards was never about a enent person or a single apartment—or even t the a single borough. It has been, and still is, vate t one of the biggest failures of government democracy , in in this City’s history, and its ctthe on the lives of hundreds of thousands as eople a in the great borough of Brooklyn. ight last has—and this is one of the victories— n the hope, inspiration and encouragement nnumerable sary people that a community dlose can fight principled fights worth fighting, ship dless of the outcome.” (9) hting else “Instant Gentrificatoin’ Source: http://dddb.net/php/aboutratner.php

Letitia James is a local councilwomen and a longtime critic of the project and of FCRC. She said in an interview: “The affordable housing has not been built. Frank Gehry is gone. And we don’t know whether they’ll honor their commitment to hire local residents or provide low-cost basketball tickets to the community.”

(2)

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Miss James sponsored the Atlantic Yards Development Workshop in February 2005, which resulted in the Unity Community Development Plan.(18) This plan is an alternative for the plan of FCRC, it is composed by various architects and includes a mix of residential units, commercial and business space as also a Source: UNITY understanding, imagining & transforming the yards public parks. The residential units are, unlike design.

FCRC’s plans, guaranteed low and affordable - Create and preserve affordable housing. housing.(12) - Reduce traffic, improve mass transit The Unity plan leaned on three main - Create jobs for Brooklyn residents. principles: integrating, connecting and opening.(15) - Create truly an open planning process, with transparency and accountability.

A revision of the Unity plan of 2007, has a bit They also compare three different scenarios more specific principles: in this revised version: What if the entire - Connect Prospect Heights, Fort Greene and project is built as planned? What if none of other neighborhoods. the FCR’s plan gets built? What if only the first - Develop at a human scale and density. phase gets built? (25) - Promote diversity and vitality in urban

‘What if none of the FCR’s plan gets built?’ The alternative of the Unity Community Development Plan, p.9

‘What if only the first phase gets build?’

Source: Modified General Project Plan, june 2009: Exhibit B Design Guidelines, p.4

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The Atlantic Yards Project

| Antrees Engelen

BrooklynSpeaks is an initiative of civic, community-based organizations, they are worried about the present and future of the development at the Atlantic Yards Project.

It was founded in September 2006, with the notification of a set of four principles for the development of the Atlantic Yards: 1. Respect and integrate with surrounding neighborhoods.

2. Include a transportation plan that works.

Source: http://brooklynspeaks.net/

3. Create affordable housing that meets the community’s needs.

4. Be truly accountable to the public?(17)

Just two days before the announcement of the design of the tower, seven former workers filed Ratner with a lawsuit. The matter of the lawsuit was a promised job and union membership after following a 15-week apprenticeship course in 2010, run by BUILD, an ally of Ratner. But those job offers never came, leaving multiple persons without a job, because they terminated their previous job to take part in the program.

A public reaction was given by Joe Deplasco, the spokesman of Forest City Ratner. He denied the fact that they promised jobs or the previously named ‘union memberships’ to the participants of the program.(6)

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The evolution of the arena: July 2005 [Gehry] -- May 2006 [Gehry] -- May 2008 [Gehry] -June 2009 [Ellerbe Becket] -- September 2009 [Ellerbe Becket & SHoP Architects] -- 2011 [Ellerbe Becket & SHoP Architects] Source: http://dddb.net/php/aboutratner.php

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The Atlantic Yards Project

| Antrees Engelen

TIMELINE 12.10.2003

The Atlantic Yards project was publicly announced at a pep rally at the Brooklyn Borough Hall, the official opening was scheduled for the fall of 2006. (5), (18)

09.2004

Bruce Ratner bought the New Jersey Nets, with the opportunity for a large real estate project as an ulterior motive. (3)

12.2006

The state and the city of New York approved the Atlantic Yards project. The first phase is planned to be finished within four years and the complete project within ten years. (4)

03.2008

Because of the slow economy, the construction of the office building and the residential part was postponed. (4)

06.2009

By lack of funds, Frank Gehry became too expensive as the main architect. And the duration of the project was extended again from ten to 25 years. (10)

09.2009

Ellerbe Becket and SHoP Architects were appointed as the new architects of the arena. (19)

11.2009

The Court of Appeals of New York gave the state permission to exercise eminent domain for the development of the Atlantic Yards Project. (3)

03.2010

Daniel Goldstein finally gave in, and accepted a settlement. (9)

04.2010

The other seven remaining owners, families or businesses also gave in and obtained an agreement. (2)

03.2011

Forest City Ratner announced that the first residential tower will be mainly prefabricated, much to the disappointment of the construction unions. (5)

07.2011

The construction on the arena, the Barclays Center, started.

11.17.2011

The actual design of the first residential tower B2, by SHoP Architects was announced. (24)

05.01.2012

The construction of the surface parking lot on the southeast block will begin. (16)

09.2012

The Barclays Center will be having its grand opening with appearances by Jay-Z, among others. (21)

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Source: http://www.shoparc.com/#/projects/featured

Source: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/251692/20111117/forest-city-ratner-shop-unveil-atlantic-yards.htm

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The Atlantic Yards Project

| Antrees Engelen

CONCLUSION The Atlantic Yards is one of the biggest, probably the biggest, projects ever taken place or that will ever take place in Brooklyn, New York City. It not only contains the new Arena for the Nets, the ‘Barclays Center’, but also a number of residential buildings, retail space, offices and some community facilities.

It has a lot of opponents, coming from the community. And the questionable course of the development over the years, and the years still to come, will only create more.

Some serious concerns about the project are about the amount of affordable housing units that will eventually be built. There are no less than 300 planned, 30% of the housing units of the first phase. This thirty percent is a high average, it’s more than is obliged by the city.

But combined with the second phase, which consists of the largest part of the area, that average will decrease significantly to alarming low numbers.

One can also question the public duty of the project. The Arena will be a large public construction. But will it be a gathering place for the public of the nearby communities and neighborhoods? And not only a meeting place for visitors and fans of the Brooklyn Nets?

According to the plans, the ‘Urban Room’ will provide for the public open space. It is my opinion that it is possible to believe that this plaza will only be used as a crossing place between the two major streets, Atlantic Avenue and Flatbush Avenue.

There are not only some mistakes in the initial design of the project, like the fact that they don’t take into account the height of the surrounding buildings, which is still very low-scale. One can also question the large involvement of the private developer and the almost non-existing involvement of the public. They were wrong to override the requirement for hearing the public out, because if they had done that a lot of the current turmoil could be avoided. But the discussion whether a top-down approach is the bad thing to do and a bottom-up is always better is a difficult one. It’s difficult because it isn’t that clearly defined, certainly for a project of this scale. The question whether another firm or with more public input could have had a better outcome for the surrounding neighborhood is a tricky one.

And there was also a lot wrong with the communication between the people/developer/ community organizations and especially the media. Misunderstandings and misconceptions are still very common about the Atlantic Yards Project, especially now because it’s in the middle of construction. There were a lot of different propositions for the design along the way. These various designs make it difficult to understand the project. And on top of that, there isn’t any certainty that everything will be built as planned. This is an aspect that with no doubt could have been planned better. There is a difference in public participation and letting the public know what you are doing, when you are doing it and what is planned for the future.

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References (1) BAGLI, Charles V. , The New York Times : Design Unveiled for Tower at Atlantic Yards, 2011, http://cityroom. blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/design-unveiled-for-tower-at-atlantic-yards/, last visited: 25/10/2011.

(2) BAGLI, Charles V. , The New York Times: $3 Million Deal Ends a Holdout in Brooklyn, 2010, http://www.nytimes. com/2010/04/22/nyregion/22yards.html, last visited: 25/10/2011.

(3) BAGLI, Charles V., The New York Times: Ruling Lets Atlantic Yards Seize Land, 2009, http://www.nytimes. com/2009/11/25/nyregion/25yards.html, last visited: 26/10/2011.

(4) BAGLI, Charles V., The New York Times: Slow Economy Likely to Stall Atlantic Yards, 2008, http://www.nytimes. com/2008/03/21/nyregion/21yards.html, last visited: 26/10/2011.

(5) BAGLI, Charles V., The New York Times: With Federal Case and Modular Building Plan, New Attention for Atlantic Yards Project , 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/nyregion/18yards.html?_ r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss, last visited: 26/10/2011.

(6) BUSH, Daniel., The Brooklyn Paper: Bait and switch? Ratner sued over ‘sham’ job-training program, 2011, http:// www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/34/46/dtg_yardsjobssuit_2011_11_18_bk.html, last visited: 15/02/2012.

(7) FAINSTEIN, Susan F., “Mega-projects in New York, London and Amsterdam”, in: International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, December 2008, Volume 32, Issue 4, pp. 768-785.

(8) GALINSKY, M.; HAWLEY, S. The movie: Battle for Brooklyn, 2011.

(9) GOLDSTEIN, Daniel, Statement From Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn Co-Founder Daniel Goldstein on April 22, 2010, 2010, http://dddb.net/, last visited: 25/10/2011.

(10) NEW YORK STATE URBAN DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION, Atlantic Yards Land Use Improvement and Civic Project, Modified General Project Plan, 2009, http://esd.ny.gov/subsidiaries_projects/ayp/AtlanticYards/ ModifiedGPP2009.pdf, last visited: 25/10/2011.

(11) ODER, Norman., Atlantic Yards Report, http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/, last visited: 25/10/2011.

(12) ROLEY, M., Landgrab, http://www.nolandgrab.org/landgrab.php, last visited: 25/10/2011.

(13) ODER, Norman, “Atlantic Yards: This Generation’s Penn Station?”, in: Places: Forum of Design for the Public Realm, 2008, Volume 20, Issue 1, pp. 79-83.

(14) RYZIK, Melena., The New York Times In Alliance, Nets Arena to Offer Arts, 2011, http://www.nytimes. com/2011/06/30/arts/music/brooklyn-academy-to-offer-arts-at-barclays-center.html, last visited: 25/11/2011.

(15) Unknown, Atlantic Yards Development Workshop. UNITY Understanding, Imagining & Transforming the Yards., 2005, http://www.unityplan.org/UnityPlanDoc_v6.pdf , last visited: 25/10/2011.

(16) Unknown, Atlantic Yards Report: the article From the latest Construction Alert, 2012, http://atlanticyardsreport. blogspot.com/2012/04/from-latest-construction-alert.html, last visited: 24/04/2012.

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The Atlantic Yards Project

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(17) Unknown, BrooklynSpeaks. About BrooklynSpeaks, http://brooklynspeaks.net/about, last visited: 25/10/2011.

(18) Unknown, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn. About the Ratner Plan, http://dddb.net/, last visited: 25/10/2011.

(19) Unknown, Ellerbe Becket and ShoP Architects to Collaborate on Barclays Center at Atlantis Yards, 2009, http://www.ellerbebecket.com/success/newsitem/475/Ellerbe_Becket_and_SHoP_Architects_to_Collaborate_on_ Barclays_Center_at_Atlantic_Yards.html, last visited: 24/10/2011.

(20) Unknown, Empire State Development: The Atlantic Yards Project, http://esd.ny.gov/Subsidiaries_Projects/AYP. html, last visited: 24/10/2011.

(21) Unknown, Forest City: Barclays Center to host grand opening celebration in 2012, 2011, http://www.forestcity. net/media/announcements/pages/Announcement.aspx?aID=52, last visited: 26/10/2011.

(22) Unknown, Forest City. Offices New York, http://www.forestcity.net/offices/new_york/Pages/default.aspx, last visited 24/10/2011.

(23) Unknown, ShoP Architects: News, http://www.shoparc.com/#, last visited: 25/10/2011.

(24) Unknown, ShoP Architects. Projects: featured, http://www.shoparc.com/home#/projects/featured, last visited: 15/02/2012.

(25) Unknown, The Center for Community Planning and Development. UNITY Understanding, Imagining & Transforming the Yards., 2007, http://www.unityplan.org/UnityPlanDoc_v6.pdf, last visited: 25/10/2011.

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REN EWED Criti cal Practi ce Dieter Leyssen

Opening

During

the

last

decades,

the

characterisation of architects as surfers on societal forces provided permission to an architectural practice that is detached from its political and social implications. Architecture turned out to be, by it’s very nature, unable to be critical1. In the United States, this movement got known as the ‘postcritical project’, extensively represented in the work of a series of architects including Bernard Tschumi and Rem Koolhaas. Embraced by the neoliberal politics, the project became, in many contemporary cities, a powerful tool within their urban strategies such as city branding, planned gentrification and inter urban competition. Recently, the critical disability of architecture got challenged by an increasing number of architects revealing a renewed social and political interest and aspiration for coping with the issues of our cities. These renewed critical architects do not subscribe the market-driven agenda that defines most of our urban contexts but instead they face the problems caused by this agenda. With new instruments this group of architects dares to run counter to the waves.

“The genius of Manhattan is the

have been critical to the hegemony appear not

simplicity of this divorce between

so much as radical alternatives, but as prescient

appearance and performance: it keeps the illusion of architecture intact, while surrendering wholeheartedly to the needs of the metropolis. This architecture relates to the forces of the Großstadt like a surfer to the waves.”

Rem Koolhaas, 1994

Context This reaction to the normative is not

exclusively located in the architectural discourse.

In the summer of 2011 a dissatisfaction with today’s political and economical conditions egressed globally. The Spanish Indignadosprotests condemned the incompetence of Spain’s leading institutions and the resulting unemployment that especially young people faced. In the United States, these protests where succeeded by the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York City. A growing amount of citizens saw themselves no longer capable to live their American dream as a sequence of crises – foreclosure, bank and debt – caused serious job losses and homelessness.2 Again, this movement inspired protesters from all over the world to condemn ‘the radicalness of today’s poverness and the violence of extreme inequality.’3 According to sociologist Saskia Sassen, this dissatisfaction does not only results in protest, moreover it provides a

70

harbingers of new ways of acting.’5 renewed critical architecture In architecture,

the renewed critical practices embody such a new way of acting. While coping with and improving upon the existing condition, this group of architects

experiences an

urgent need for new tools that differ from the traditional. Recently, this need was expressed by philosopher Bruno Latour, who faced the architectural discourse with the reality that ‘after almost four centuries after perspective drawings and more than two centuries after the invention of projective geometry, there is still no convincing way to draw the controversial space that a building almost always is.’ He finds it ‘hard to believe that the powerful visualizing tools we now possess are still unable to do more than Leonardo, Dürer or Piero.’6 The diversity of methods applied by renewed critical practices illustrates the search for new instruments. All projects share the intent to transform or to make the status quo better, but through very different means. For these architects, the architectural discipline expands from activism to pedagogy, from publications to networking, ‘from making stuff to making policy.’7 However the movement is characterised by a diversity in approaches, every project tends to ‘embark upon a participatory process’ and there is always the ‘intend to interact with the public realm.’8

valuable moment of rethinking our foundational

Many guiding principles for this participatory

categories of social existence that ‘used to be

approach are far from new. In European

bureaucratisized by greater institutions.’4 In

architecture, the participation movement of

times that even the most hardened institutions

the 1970s emphasized for the first time in

are forced to rethink their values, ‘practices that

architectural history the balance of power

Newly Critical practice

| Dieter Leyssen

between architect and user. In this period, a

a more open design-process, but the design-

number of different approaches was developed.

instruments, the catalogue, remained closed

‘With workshops, consultations and through

and unknown for the ones involved.

establishing

neighbourhood

offices,

these

architects did a first attempt to involve the users in the design process.’9 The empowering of the user to form his own spaces, brought forward the question about who has the right or the privilege to claim space. Henri Lefebvre’s theories on the political character of space are determinant for this practice. While in the first half of the century principles such as light, air and health where stressed, Lefebvre re-values the (dense) city as the ideal locus for the practice that constitutes a social and political awareness. He claims the ‘right on the city’ for all citizens.10

However

this movement celebrated the participatory approach, the architect’s position in projects

‘We are the architects, and I don’t want to escape from that responsibility of being or deciding etc., but I do not want to decide alone.’

Lucien Kroll

still holds a considerable degree of authority.

Belgian architect Lucien Kroll states it well: ‘We are the architects, and I don’t want to escape from that responsibility of being or deciding etc., but I do not want to decide alone.’11 Their intents to bring architecture’s intellect and creativity in direct contact with society often couldn’t be fully realised, partially because of the lack of the right instruments. The participatory practice by John Habraken sets an example. In his housing projects he empowered the users by letting them choose all elements – doors, windows, walls, materials, etc. - of their dwellings out of a prescribed catalogue. This established surely

For the renewed critical architects, the need to be ‘involved’ is considered crucial. ‘They act outside the office, locating and identifying existing practices, interests and needs.’ For them, ‘architecture has to identify the needs of people and possible forms of aggregation, while stimulating processes that will enable us to live better.’12 The architect becomes a ‘seismographer’ for valuable social processes.

In the next chapter I will dwell upon two different projects in order to analyse more deeply the approach of the group of architects I address.

The first is a collaboration between Dutch artist Jeanne Van Heeswijk and architect Dennis Kaspori for a public park in Slotervaart, Amsterdam and the second,

‘Imaginare

Corviale’, is a project by the Italian multidisciplinary group of artists and architects called Osservatorio Nomade.

Both projects

are located in modernist social housing projects that in time became characterised by social and material degradation. Acknowledging their social and political agenda, it should come as no surprise that the renewed critical architects prefer those ‘difficult sites’5 – defunct social housing projects at the cities’ margins, brown field sites, undervalued public spaces - for their interventions.14 These contested urban spaces are often neglected by the marketdriven mainstream building industry, so they serve the ideal locus for experimentation with new methods and instruments of architecture.

Both Van Heeswijk and Kaspori as Osservatorio Nomade prove to do so, with different outcomes, one more successful than the other.

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Face Your World Jeanne Van Heeswijk and Dennis Kaspori Face your world, StedelijkLab Slotervaart started in early 2005 in the Staalmanplein neighbourhood, located in a satellite city in West Amsterdam called Slotervaart. The project

by Jeanne Van Heeswijk and Dennis Kaspori embarks upon the principles of intensive participation by local residents for the creation of a 13,500 square meter public park to serve as the district’s new public heart. The goal was to create a park that would be embraced by the different ethnical groups of the Slotervaart area. In 2006, the city of Amsterdam approved the design and in 2010 the construction started. According to Van Heeswijk, the project consorts with her other work that cannot be ‘executed’ because they are ‘ongoing collective researches’ on the notions of ‘publicness, social interaction and politics.’15

72

of the general expansion plan16 that introduced the Western Garden Cities surrounding the city of Amsterdam. Based on the utopian CIAM traditions, these suburbs offered a healthier, lighter and greener alternative for Amsterdam’s city core. As prescribed by all modernist architects and urban planners, the layout of the suburb contained streets with broad sidewalks, spacious apartments and separate building blocks so that air and light could infiltrate in every dwelling. Over the last three decades, the Western Garden Cities have seen a decline in reputation. Social tensions have risen considerably over the last years with a series of violent crimes, the rise of populist politicians and a discourse of problems between ethnical groups. Together with the above mentioned neoliberal politics, celebrating post critical architecture in the city centre and specific

Slotervaart: A Contested garden city The

urban areas located elsewhere, these problems

district of Slotervaart was build in 1953 as part

transformed the once utopian and visionary

Newly Critical practice

| Dieter Leyssen

living areas into neighbourhoods haunted by

can only be heard by young people, and was

social, economic, ethnical and infrastructural

meant to solve the problem of gang affiliation

problems.

and fights in public space. However, the city of

70-79

80+

0-9

60-69

50-59

Amsterdam decided to forbid this device since 0-19

Since the apartments in the Garden Cities

40-49

it was an ‘undesirable’ and ‘discriminating’ way

like Slotervaart are relatively big according to

of combating the nuisance in public space. The

Dutch standards, they started to attract mainly

30-39

large, often immigrant, families. Situated in the

methods’ to deal with the problem.19

suburbs, often not able to speak Dutch, these

Shared urban renewal

families became isolated and the neighbourhood higher

crime

rates.

The

natives

of imposing the use of public space on its users, they did an attempt to define it together with Moroccans

caused the problem of violence and insecurity

all the affected users. In the urban renewal

in the public spaces. In a bi-monthly research

program for the neighbourhood, initiated by the

held by the city of Amsterdam on living quality

percent of the respondents answered positively on questions concerning the social quality of the neighbourhood, a decrease from 42 percent in

Antilleans

approach of Van Heeswijk and Kaposki. Instead

unemployment and the amount of youngsters

suburbs with the lowest ‘social quality.’ Only 35

Indeed, the named

Turkish

increasing

and safety, Slotervaart remains among the

Surinamese

safety devices stay in shrill contrast with the

had to cope with unemployment, gang affiliation and

20-29

mayor claimed that ‘the city has enough other

western immigrants

other non-western immigrants

120 100 80

sloterwijk

60

nieuw west

40

centrum

20 0 2008

2009

2010

2011

safety index in city center (above) and Sloterwijk (under)

2010.17 The objective safety index18 decreased

70-79

the last years and lies notable under the index

80+

60-69

measured in Amsterdam’s historic core, yet 22

0-9

50-59

percent of Slotervaart’s respondents testified to

0-19 40-49

feel unsafe in specific areas of the area while in the centre this number is only 8 percent. This

30-39

20-29

may point out a laissez faire-policy applied by the authorities in these contested areas. To

Surinamese

solve this safety-problem, the Slotervaart ward

Antilleans

installed safety cameras on five squares in the

Turkish

neighbourhood. The residents, shopkeepers natives

and police tend to support this strategy since their installation in 2008 reduced the safety index

Moroccans

from 80 to 68. The second device, the mosquito, served to increase safety too, but was removed western immigrants

in 2011. The Mosquito makes a high sound that

other non-western immigrants

Demographics Sloterwijk source: os amsterdam

120 100

80 sloterwijk

60

nieuw west

40

centrum

20 0 2008

2009

2010

2011

73

erial Photo of Slotervaart Showing the Spacious Layout of the Apartment Blocks

Sloterwijk 1953

source: Maaike Lauwaert

source: Cittadelarte

city of Amsterdam together with De Alliantie,

the ‘mobilisation of the own strength’ of the

the organisation which owns the houses in

immigrant groups are named to serve this

the area, recently participation became an

neighbourhood better living conditions. In

Heeswijk et al. important tool. Before, other strategies based

her survey on the Slotervaart area, journalist

on economical and physical re-valuation where

and art curator Maaike Lauwaert, points out

proven unable to counterweight the situation.

the challenges of urban renewal in contested

In the first version of Richting Parkstad 2015, a

neighbourhoods like these.20 The problem of

report containing the objectives for the renewal

expropriation, as well as the sense of insecurity

of a series contested suburb areas including

and confusion among residents concerning

Slotervaart, the strategy implied the attraction

the future of their homes, makes the process

of wealthier families to new build apartments

of urban renewal difficult to proceed. The

of a higher price range. In 2006, five years

suspicion of the residents is surely the result

after the first report, it became clear that the

of the failure of previous renewal plans. Anique

planned gentrification lacked and Slotervaart

Hommels defines the difficulties in ‘disputed’

remained an undesirable location. From then

or ‘contested’ areas as ‘unbuilding activities’.

on, the existing population of the borough

The renewal of such sites is so complex that

became the focus of the renewal plans. Next

‘years of planning, debate, an controversy may

to the economical and physical renewal, the

result in no changes at all.’21a The approach of

social aspect gained in importance. In the

the Slotervaart ward is an attempt to overcome

newest version of Richting Parkstad 2015,

this ‘reverse’ outcome21b through means of

‘empowerment’ of the local community and

participation and the intensive informing of the

74

Newly Critical practice

| Dieter Leyssen

local residents.22 Within this approach, Face

instruments aren’t without danger. According to

Your World aimed to investigate the potentials

Kheir Al-Kodmany, professor in urban design

of participation in designing the shared space

and physical planning at the University of

of the neighbourhood. The project addressed

Illinois, the ‘serious’ games neglect a great deal

the

in

of the actual environment when transformed

participatory projects, namely younger people

in to realistic computer-generated images.24

and immigrants.

More-over, the games never tend to grant

traditionally

less

involved

actors

Interactor Face Your World was originally

developed in Columbus, Ohio as a collective learning environment that helped children in investigating their surroundings and the ways to adapt it. Key instrument in this project was the 3D software called Interactor.23 This program enabled the participants to create their own vision on their public space in an illustrative way, but it also constructed a network of different visions and the opportunity to negotiate. It wasn’t the first time a computer-game served

“(While) participation processes might be intended to open up the blackbox nature of policy making and

access to the design tool itself, resulting in a very superficial participation of cataloguepicking. While ‘Participation processes might be intended to open up the black-box nature of policy making and urban renewal’, ‘the tools via which the participants are expected to participate, remain black boxes.’25 Van Heeswijk tends to incorporate this critique in the Interactor. In Slotervaart, the game was complemented with other more direct methods, like drawing on the surface of the park on the floor on a scale of 1:5. But also in the game itself, the children can opt for objects out of the library as well as create elements themselves and load them into the program.

Exploring, sketching and consulting Face Your

urban renewal, the tools via which

World set up camp in an old gymnasium of

the participants are expectedv to

Slotervaart, on the site of the future park, and

participate, remain black boxes”

Kheir Al-Kodmany, 2006

as a tool in participatory design process. Since the mid-nineties, so-called ‘serious games’ aimed to combine the entertainment value with a political or social agenda. Acknowledging their permanently increasing techno-logical possibilities, these computer-based instruments have the potential to be embraced by both critical practices as the users. However, these

transformed it into an ‘urban lab’. This centre served as recognisable spot for residents, children, students and all other involved parties to discuss the design of the neighbourhood’s future park. The design process, during 27 weeks, was divided into three phases. In the exploring phase, Van Heeswijk’s team got to know the neighbourhood and its users. Van Heeswijk testifies that she doesn’t’ aim to curate a project, nor does she write a conception or does she produce a project. Instead, she

75

understanding of a given place and its dynamics and identify certain questions capable of creating a ‘performative action’. It is because of this idealistic and committed character that Van Heeswijk’s projects tend to be extremely stratified and prolonged in time. Her purpose is to identify a model; in many cases one that can be replicated and which is capable of supplying tools that allow people to develop their perceptions and set a process of change under way [7, 8].

renewal tasks – usually realised on the basis of economic principles – with existing social and cultural capital.’4 The project, developed at first in Columbus, Ohio (usa), offered children a collective learning environment, in which they could learn how to investigate their living environment as well as adapt it [11, 12]. It allowed children to engineer their surroundings, combining and re-using existing components in order to devise innovative visions of

Images created with Interactor

Interactor

9

source: KEI

‘becomes part of the field’ of interactions which

experts in the fields of urban planning, design

she stimulates. The exploring phase is of great

and landscape architecture. In this phase,

Emiliano Gandolfi

Strategies for a better world

importance for the identification http://journals.cambridge.org of what she

the participating children were asked to take

Downloaded: 05 Feb 2012

Username: DieterLeyssen

IP address: 134.58.253.30

calls ‘experts on location’. Whether they live in

an in-game screen-shot where they would

the area, or have a peculiar purpose, such as

work on. With the elements from the game’s

working there, these experts are people who

library, or with self designed elements they

‘carry a certain knowledge that is needed for

could try out different design solutions for the

that specific place.’ In this field of ‘experts on

park individually.27 The adults where involved

location’ she inserts herself as ‘an amateur.’

through more traditional methods of the

She explains: ‘being an amateur means being

participatory design. In the lab, they were invited

completely open as much as you can, being

to participate in workshops, meetings and

submissive to anything you can learn, and being

surveys. The 49 events organised in the seven

open to anything a person wants to bestow

months of process demonstrate an certain

upon you and wants to teach.’

interest and high rate of partaking by the local

26

In the second phase, sketching, ideas and aspirations are devised collectively. Students from two different schools where welcomed in the lab two times a week, as Face Your World

residents. The meetings were always attended by an illustrator, transforming immediately the abstract requests into a more visible idea. The

was part of their school curriculum. Throughout

“a sliding tree, disco tree, pond tree,

the process of designing with the Interactor,

tire swing tree, snack tree”

the children where guided by a group of

76

source: Emiliano Gandolfi

Newly Critical practice

| Dieter Leyssen

requests by students, 2005

10

sketching source: Cittadellarte

Consulting source: Cittadellarte workshops and meetings addressed each

plan developed by Face Your World Slotervaart

time a specific group of stakeholders such as

and scheduled the completion for mid-2009.

immigrant woman and elderly residents. This

The result can be summarised as an interesting

“Being an amateur means being completely open as much as you can,

fusion of different spaces and functions within the layout of the ellipsoidal running track. There is a sports field that can be used for football,

being submissive to anything you can

basketball, theatre plays and market areas.

learn, and being open to anything a

Specific resident requests such as a ‘girls-tree’

person wants to bestow upon you and wants to teach. ”

Jeanne Van Heeswijk, 2010

may have led to a greater occupancy of the sessions but caused frustration for excluded residents.28

got translated into a secluded areas for teenage girls and even strict regulation imposed by the Slotervaart ward where bent to the participants’ requests.29 The ultimate design caters as many of the wishes that arose during the process as possible and transforms them into the design of a park.

Thirdly, All proposals made by Interactor as

A new park Despite of some negative reaction

well as during the workshops, where discussed

from an white elderly group, not the main

intensively. The proposals who pleased all

participant in the hearings and discussions, the

present stakeholders could be voted to be

process of Face Your World in Slotervaart can

incorporated in the final design of the park. On

be considered a success. After seven months

1 March 2006, the District Council approved the

of exploring, sketching and negotiating, the

77

participants in front of urban lab source: Cittadellarte

As a strategic framework for empowering the residents of this contested area, Face Your World had shown its effectiveness. Comparing

r

to all other devices applied in the area, the safety

t

cameras and the latter Mosquito device, this

t

framework exemplifies well how to ‘symbolize

o

and express political goals pertaining to

g

openness and inclusiveness.’

W

31

t

u

t

t

t

t

o

p

b

w

t

c

i

a

78

Newly Critical practice

| Dieter Leyssen

Imagining Corviale Osservatorio Nomade Osservatorio Nomade shows in the project

'The snake ‘ The Corviale was conceived in

‘Imagining Corviale’, another attempt to improve

1974 by Italian architect Mario Fiorentino and

a so-called failed modernist utopian site. This

a team of Roman architects as one of a series

Italian multi-disciplinary group of artists and

of residential megastructures build throughout

architects favours to work on what they call

Italy in the 70’s.33 Influenced by the principles

‘actuate territories’ – negative elements in the

of CIAM and inspired by designs such as Unité

city, interstitial and marginal areas, derelict

d’Habitation and Plan Obus by Le Corbusier,

spaces and spaces under transformation – like,

a number of Italian architects proposed such

in this case, the one kilometer long Corviale

‘machines’ for living as an alternative for life

building.32 Characteristicly for the movement

both in the historic city and in the industrial

of renewed critical architects, they believe

suburbs. They were able to realize their utopian

architecture can produce both social aggregation

design thanks to the funds, allocated to public

and political awareness among the population

housing, and to the state, willing to invest in

of these sites. However, the instruments and

these heavy outlay without wanting a return

formulas applied by this group differ strongly

on their investment. But being the last building

from

In

result of this policy, and realised almost ten

Imagining Corviale, they aimed to establish a

classical

architectural

methods.

years after the planning, the Corviale was

more positive image and an improvement of the

since its entry to service in 1982 an obsolete

living conditions in a declined 958-metre-long

‘relict from another time zone.’34 The building,

housing project, maimed by years of decline

nicknamed ‘the snake’, was supposed to

and illegal squattering.

contain alongside 1200 apartments, many

79

the Corviale source: Talking cities

services and public and commercial spaces

“We tried to grasp the way in which

located on an elevated ‘street’ resembling the

a building, with its extremely rigid

Smithson’s ‘golden lane.’ However, the planned public services never occurred because the public administration wasn’t able to manage

digested by its inhabitants through the

them. The building that supposed to be

small alterations that they have made,

innovative and to offer residents a better way

representing a free interpretation of a

of life, soon became a symbol of decay, social conflicts and isolation and an evidence for the failure of modernist architecture. Since the 1980’s many people, architects included, have been calling for its demolition. Recently, more and more approaches that imply a conservation or a renewal of this unique urban relict are surfacing. Osservatorio Nomade’s Imagining Corviale explores the participatory approach on such a renewal.

Reality, image and imagination As in the case of

the Slotervaart neighbourhood, the population of Corviale is ethnically and culturally very diverse but shares one feature: poverty. Aside the

80

architectural structure, has been

Newly Critical practice

| Dieter Leyssen

social and residential model imposed from above.”

Osservatorio Nomade, 2005

problematic isolation from the city of Rome, the Corveale tends to struggle mainly with its image and perception of both outsiders and residents, resulting in a low self-image of its users. The team of Osservatorio Nomade tries to involve the Corviale’s residents in the improvement of their building through the ‘involvement in ‘games’ that trigger a novel view, perception and criticism of the place itself’.35 In order to fully understand the contexts they are working on,

Micro transformations source: Domus Osservatorio Nomade prefers to ‘live them’ for a

has been digested by its inhabitants through

prolonged period of time, in this case an almost

the small alterations that they have made,

two year long period between 2004 and 2005.

representing a free interpretation of a social

Their dialogue with the inhabitants has led to three dimensions that the team worked on during these two years: ‘the reality that people live, the image and the imagination.’36 Concerning the

and residential model imposed from above.’37 The mapping of these illegal dwellings resulted in an ‘atlas of micro-transformation.’ These transformations represent the resident’s ‘desire

first dimension, the team mapped the condition

Osservatorio Nomade succeeded

of the building today. This research was

to create, half a century after the

essentially located on the 4the floor, the ‘free floor’ where public functions and services were supposed to create

the public ‘heart’ of the

Corviale. In the early 90’s, this floor began to be squatted by illegal residents or relatives. Now illegal self-build apartments occupy the whole space within a complex net of communal spaces shared by various dwellings. Looking to this mixture of illegal public and private spaces, the team tried to ‘grasp the way in which a building, with its extremely rigid architectural structure,

building’s conception, a constructive encounter between its designers and the users for reinterpretation’ as well as their broadened perspective concerning private and public sphere. In this sense, the communal spaces in between the illegal apartments could be seen as the self-initiated, participatory version of Fiorentino’s public lane. The objectives for Osservatorio Nomade aren’t necessarily the

81

Atlas source: Domus

Corviale Network source: comune.rome.it enhancement of security or the improvement

with young people of the area. This channel,

of living conditions of the squatters but the

called Tele Corviale, was ought to be used to

exploration of the vitality those anomalies can

produce ‘creative programs that will set out to

offer for the neighbouring of groups of different

recount the transformations under-way and

origins inhabiting one single floor. With this

the ones peoples are dreaming of.’ According

atlas as a tool, Osservatorio Nomade worked

to Osservatorio Nomade, these programs,

together with the residents on a renewal project

featuring the Corivale-building in a leading

that was accepted by the public administration

role, will consolidate the processes and

who started to legalize the squatters.

collective identification with the place in which

The second dimension of Osservatorio Nomade addressed in their work in the Corviale was its image that has been spread by the media since decades. Names such as ‘horror of the periphery’ and ‘the world’s longest mistake’38 are common descriptions for this house of more than 6000 residents. The means through which Osservatorio Nomade tried to improve this image was ironically the same as those that have produced its distorted representation: a local television station, here set up together

82

Newly Critical practice

| Dieter Leyssen

they live.39 This TV-station got easily accepted by the residents because of its recognizable formula. Osservatorio Nomade democratizes this formula by empowering the residents with the right instruments and networks to produce their own programs. After the team’s departure in 2005, Corviale Network kept producing in collaboration with a bigger channel until it was disbanded. However, other programs covering the Corviale remained profiting from Corviale Network’s success. 40

but choose to function as an agency, directing certain existing processes in the right way, here the illegal micro-transformation, and enhancing certain factors with customized instruments, for example the low self-image addressed in the television channel.42 As in Van Heeswijk’s work 9th floor 2008 source: Talking Cities

in Slotervaart, the project can be evaluated regarding both the process and its outcome.

The material outcome of Imagining Corviale is of course less visible as in Van Heeswijk’s case however the approval for the legislation of the squatter structure on the public floor shows an equally constructive outcome. The re-emergence of the Corviale in the educational

4th floor 1981-2

source: Talking Cities

realm43

and

architecture

practice

since

Osservatorio Nomade’s interventions shows At last, part of the team worked on the

not only the direct influence of a renewed critical

perception of the building by its residents as a

approach such as Immaginare Corviale but also

utopian monument. Well aware of the conflicts

the indirect, through publications and lectures,

and problems that shaped the actual state of

creating a broader awareness of the agency

the building, they aimed to make the residents

of architecture to face the social, political and

aware of ‘the dream of an ideal community that

spatial issues in our urban contexts.

constitutes the very meaning of Corviale.’ The 41

team did this through the formula of dialogue between the actual residents and the people involved in the design and construction of the building. Osservatorio Nomade succeeded to create, half a century after the building’s conception, a constructive encounter between its designers and the users.

Laboratory for urban renewal The multitude of

instruments developed by the multidisciplinary team of Osservatorio Nomade illustrates well the need for experimentation with instruments and formulas to address the different dimensions of contested territories such as the Corviale. They avoid a predetermined disciplinary approach,

83

Conclusion

The work of Van Heeswijk and

Kaspori and Osservatorio Nomade adequately demonstrate the engagement of the group of architects, designers and artists I address, to redefine the role of architecture. While legitimising its political and conflictual nature, they aim to use architecture as a instrument for improvement. Architectrue is no longer passive towards the problems of our cities, as

is that they are, in order to distinguish the existing processes correctly, interdisciplinary.

Defining the role of all actors within the process, it is important to stress the difference between

“The architect becomes a seismographer who locates and

it is thought in the post critical movement but

identifies existing practices, interests

plays an active role in dealing with our urban

and needs”

issues. The renewed critical architects also differ from their precursors of participatory movement. In the 1960s and 1970s architects would often ask citizens for their ideas and the local authorities practiced participation solely through surveys, where after the design would be created outside of the participatory realm.

Unlike the past century, the renewed critical practices aim for a sensitisation campaign that ‘involves the local community and that stimulates collective processes, spontaneous creativity and activism in order to incite a new political role for architecture.‘44 Specialist on the movement, Emiliano Gandolfi, explains that in a collective project like those two cases ‘the architect, the planner, the artist, the psychoanalyst and the designer are simply people in a position to supply certain instruments and mediate the relation between people.’45 For the whole discourse of architecture, the introduction of the architect’s role as ‘seismographer’ may be of most value.46 Distinguishing valuable existing processes, activities and relations and push these in a constructive direction in a designerly way.

84

Another important feature of these practices

Newly Critical practice

Emiliano Gandolfi, 2008

an interdisciplinary and a multidisciplinary process.47 Architecture as a subject includes history, theory, criticism and design as well as urban, technological, social and political studies so that it can be defined as a multidisciplinary subject. In design processes however, a collaboration occurs between the different disciplines within architecture. Their own specific approaches

collaborate

and

exert

critical

pressure on each other, and the architectural practice occurs as ‘interdisciplinary.’ This might give a solution to the ‘crisis of the role of the architect’48, since every discipline within the architectural discourse remains defined and the critical relation between each actor serves the process’ validity. This critical relation must be established with actors from within other disciplines as well. In this sense, Jeanne Van Heeswijk acts as an artist within an urban process with success due to the interdisciplinary team of architects, urban planners and ‘location experts’ she brought together.

Van Heeswijk sets the example of the artist, active in the urban context, that collaborates or influences the architectural realm. While

| Dieter Leyssen

architects had difficulties in facing critically ‘the

expressing ideas of participation, network and

rapid metamorphosis of the city, art tends to give

empowerment was presented.50

an immediate response to the emergencies of

As these approaches are surfacing on the

everyday life.’

It went even that far that certain

mainstream discourse, empowered by institutes

architects preferred the territory of art and the

and trusted by more and more city authorities,

museum above the actual urban context for

architecture may overcome the accusation of

positioning the political intent of architecture

being irrelevant to the real stakes in society and

today. Again, the interdisciplinary approach can

may become a justified tool to manoeuvre both

serve a reconciliation between the disciplines

the social and the material sphere into a more

of art and architecture. A critical relation can

constructive direction.

49

make both the artistic knowledge as the spatial capacities relevant for an architectural intervention,

without

losing

their

specific

qualities, as happened in Face Your World.

The call for applicants for the American pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale sets an example, requiring ‘Design Actions for the Common Good’.

As explained in the two cases, the use of interactive computergames, film and television, may, among many other possible instruments, prove to be effective tools for a renewed participatory practice. This has recently been supported by a number of leading institutes in the architectural discourse. The call for applicants for the American pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale sets an example, requiring ‘Design Actions for the Common Good’. The institute that was selected to gather these applications, the Centre for Urban Design New York, organized in the summer of 2011 the successful week for Urban Design where a considerable amount of projects

85

footnotes 1 Rem Koolhaas declared in 1994 that ‘there is in the deepest motivations of architecture something that cannot be critical.’ KOOLHAAS, Rem, cited in KAPUSTA, Beth, The Canadian Architect Magazine, 1994 Vol. 39, p. 10 - 21 2 The dependency of the Occupy Wall Street movement on the ‘American Dream’- phenomenon is described in DE VROEY, Bert, ‘Occupy Wall Street versus American Dream’, 2011, on: http://analyse.deredactie.be/2011/10/19/occupy-wall-street-versus-american-dream/, last visited: 2012.06.06 a 3 SASSEN, Saskia, ‘Nomadic territories’, In: BURTSCHER, Angelika, WIELANDER, Judith Wielander, Visible. Where art leaves its own field and becomes visible as part of something else, Sternberg Press, Berlin-New York, 2010, p. 19 – 23 4 In ‘Nomadic territories and Times’ sociologist Saskia Sassen makes an argument that currently, an increasing number of works of art signals that there is much happening beneath the surface of our modernity. Within this argument, she cites ‘time, subjectivity, territory, authority and rights’ as the foundational categories of social existence which are been unshackled by today’s emergent realities and possibilities.

5 SCHNEIDER, Tatjana, TILL, Jeremy, ‘Beyond Discourse: Notes on Spatial Agency’, in: Footprint, 2009, No. 4 Agency in Architecture. Reframing Criticality in theory and pactice, Delft School of Design, p. 97 – 111 6 Latour expresses this outrage in the essay ‘Give me a gun and I will make all buildings move: An ant’s view of architecture’, an essay he wrote together with Albena Yaneva for the Venice Biennale 2008. The same opinion appears earlier in Latour’s article ‘The space of Controversies’ in New Geographies 1 on the insufficient tools architects remain to use. LATOUR, Bruno, YANEVA, Albena, ‘Give me a Gun and I will Make All Buildings Move: An Ant’s view on Architecture.’ In: Reto Geiser, Explorations in Architecture: Teaching, Design, Research. Basel, Birkhäuser, 2008 7 SCHNEIDER, Tatjana, TILL, Jeremy, 2009 8 GANDOLFI, Emiliano, A Struggle on Two Fronts – Art as Collective Process, in: BURTSCHER, Angelika, WIELANDER, Judith Wielander, Visible. Where art leaves its own field and becomes visible as part of something else, Sternberg Press, Berlin-New York, 2010, p. 11 – 17` 9 SCHNEIDER, Tatjana (ed.), TILL, Jeremy (ed.), et al., Spatial Agency. Other ways of doing Architecture. London, Routledge. 2011 10 LEFEBVRE, Henri, ‘Ruimte en politiek.’ In : HEYNEN, HildE, et al. (eds.) Dat is architectuur. Sleutelteksten uit de twintigste eeuw. 010, Rotterdam, 2004, p. 467-470. [Original Publication : Lefebvre, Henri. 1972. ‘Espace et politique’ Le droit à la ville, Suivi d’Espace et politque, Paris : Anthropos, p. 155-164.

11 KROLL, Lucien, ‘Animal Town Planning and Homeopathic Architecture’, in: BLUNDELL-JONES, Peter, PETRESCU, Doina and TILL, Jeremy (eds.), Architecture and Participation, Routledge, Londen, 2005, p. 186 12 GANDOLFI, Emiliano, ‘Strategies for a Better World’, in: arq, 2008, vol. 12, no. 2, p. 125 13 I lend this expression from Linda Pollak, as she defines these spaces in the contexts of post-industrial cities that include processes of decay as well as growth. These sites have been subject to different kinds of degradation: abandonment, neglect, environmental exploitation, toxicity, and/or wasteful land practices. I want to add social segregation and discrimination to this description. POLLAK, Linda, ‘The Landscape for Urban Reclamation’, 2006, in: Lotus, 2006, Vol. 128, p. 32 – 43 14 FERGUSON, Franscesca (ed.) et al., Talking Cities: The Micropolitics of Urban space, Birkhäuser, Basel, 2006, p. 22 15 VAN HEESWIJK, Jeanne, in: GANDOLFI, Emiliano, A Struggle on Two Fronts – Art as Collective Process, in: BURTSCHER, Angelika, WIELANDER, Judith Wielander, Visible. Where art leaves its own field and becomes visible as part of something else, Sternberg Press, BerlinNew York, 2010, p. 138 16 This plan was constituted in 1934 under supervision of Dutch architect and urban planner Cornelis van Eesteren who was presidents of the international congress of modern architecture (CIAM) from 1930 to 1947.

17 This data was found on: CITY OF AMSTERDAM, ‘Amsterdam in cijfers’, on: http://www.os.amsterdam.nl/, last visited on: 2012.06.07 18 The objective safety index is based on the 7 elements being: burglary, theft, violence, harassment, drugs, vandalism and traffic.

19 Part of an interview in Parool newspaper with Mayor Eberhard van der Laan on the use of the Mosquito Device in public space. SOETENHORST, Bas, ‘Van der Laan: Mosquito in de ban’, 2011, on: http://www.parool.nl/parool/nl/4/AMSTERDAM/article/ detail/1836134/2011/02/18/Van-der-Laan-mosquito-in-de-ban.dhtml, last visited: 2012.06.07 20 LAUWAERT, Maaike, ‘Playing the City: Public Participation in a Contested Suburban Area’, Journal of Urban Technology, 2009? Vol. 16, No. 2-3, p. 143-168 21a HOMMELS, Anique, Unbuilding cities: obduracy in urban socio-technical change, Mass. MIT Press, Cambridge, 2005 21b I lend this term from Ralf Brand, who defined ‘reverse engineering’ in his article Urban Artifacts and Social Practices in a Contested City.

BRAND, Ralf, ‘Urban Artifacts and Social Practices in a Contested City’, Journal of Urban Technology, 2009, Vol. 16, No. 2, p. 35 - 60 22 The website stichtingdriehoek.nl is an example of an informing website, showing not only the problems but also the positive side of the Slotervaart. UNKNOWN, Stichting Driehoek, 2010, on: http://stichtingdriehoek.nl/cms/index.php, last visited: 12.06.07 23 Van Heeswijk developed this tool in collaboration with V2_lab in Rotterdam

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Newly Critical practice

| Dieter Leyssen

24 AL-KODMANY, Kheir quoted in: LAUWAERT, Maaike, ‘Playing the City: Public Participation in a Contested Suburban Area’, Journal of Urban Technology, 2009? Vol. 16, No. 2-3, p. 143-168 25 id.

26 VAN HEESWIJK, Jeanne, in: GANDOLFI, Emiliano, A Struggle on Two Fronts – Art as Collective Process, in: BURTSCHER, Angelika, WIELANDER, Judith Wielander, Visible. Where art leaves its own field and becomes visible as part of something else, Sternberg Press, BerlinNew York, 2010, p. 134 27 In total, 1216 sketches where made and 1207 elements designed by the children where added to the library.

28 An elderly man, Gerard, explains he and many senior white residents felt left out of the participation process because it was targeted towards the young and immigrant population of the neighborhood 29 For example, the ward required entrances at each corner of the park while the final design had entrances in the middle of every side, not to interrupt ellipsoidal jog and walk path.

30 LAUWAERT, Maaike, ‘Playing the City: Public Participation in a Contested Suburban Area’, Journal of Urban Technology, 2009? Vol. 16, No. 2-3, p. 143-168 31 BOLLENS, Scott A. ‘Intervening in Politically Turbulent Cities: Spaces, Buildings, and Boundaries’, Journal of Urban Technology, 2009, Vol. 16 No. 2-3,p. 79-107 32 JEREMY TILL et al., http://www.spatialagency.net/, 2012, last visited: 12.06.03 33 Examples can be found in the “Vele” in Naples (1964), the “Biscione” in Genoa (1968), the Rozzol Melara complex in Trieste (1970) and the “Monte Amiata” at the Gallaratese in Milan (1973).

34 SANTORI, Flaminia G., in: FERGUSON, Franscesca (ed.) et al., Talking Cities: The Micropolitics of Urban space, Birkhäuser, Basel, 2006, p.

110 35 id.

36 OSSERVATORIO NOMADE, ‘immaginare corviale, un progetto promosso da Osservatorio Nomade Stalker’, LOTUS international, 2005, Vol. 124, p, 107 37 This designation was given in 1991 by Careri and Laoque in Architecture d’aujourd hui. CARERI, LAOQUE, ‘Corviale, La plus longue erreur du monde’, L’Architecture d’Aujourd’Hui, 1991, n.273, p. unkown 38 OSSERVATORIO NOMADE, ‘immaginare corviale, un progetto promosso da Osservatorio Nomade Stalker’, LOTUS international, 2005, Vol. 124, p, 107 39 A fragment from Corviale Network can be seen on vimeo.com/3251205, another program that kept featuring the building is for example Vivere l’architettura, broadcast by Roma Uno. 40 OSSERVATORIO NOMADE, ‘immaginare corviale, un progetto promosso da Osservatorio Nomade Stalker’, LOTUS international, 2005, Vol. 124, p, 107 41 Recent literature on the question of Agency in Architecture publications is the publication Footprint: Agency in Architecture: Reframing Criticality in Theory and Practice, editored by Kenny Cuppers and Isabelle Doucet or the book Spatial Agency, Other Ways of Doing Architecture by Nishat Awan, Tatjana Schneider and Jeremy Till. They share the understanding of agency as ‘a vehicle of the intention to create alternative worlds.’

42 The research done since 2004 in the Roman School of Architecture “La Sapienza” in collaboration with Colombia University on the Corviale building sets an example.

43 GANDOLFI, Emiliano, ‘Strategies for a Better World’, in: arq, 2008, vol. 12, no. 2, p. 125 44 Id. p. 132 45 I lend the term ‘seismographer from Emilioano Gandolfi, as he uses his in his article ‘strategies for a Better World’.

46 Jane Rendell, co-author of the pivotal work on the renewed critical practice ‘critical architecture’, forces the difference in her work ‘Architectural Research and Disciplinarity’. RENDELL, Jane, et al., Critical Architecture, Routledge, London, 2007 47 Recently a the tendency of architect who practiced in the realm of other disciplines -the arts, urbanism, sociology, and so on- was challenged.

The relevance for the architect in architecture was questioned. ‘Exploring the social and political, are architects still relevant to architecture’, an article by Eva Berghund on the Alternate Currents Symposium exemplifies this crisis. BERGHUND, Eva, ‘Exploring the social and political, are architects still relevant to architecture’, Architectural Research Quarterly, 2008, Vol. 12, p. 105-111 48 GANDOLFI, Emiliano, ‘Strategies for a Better World’, in: arq, 2008, vol. 12, no. 2, p. 125 49 INSTITUTE FOR URBAN DESIGN et al., ‘Spontanious Interventions, Design Actions for the Common Good, 2012, on: http:// spontaneousinterventions.com/, last visited: 2012.06.07

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PROSPECT PLAZA Towards a new future since 1997 Koen Moesen The site of former New York City Housing Authority’s public housing complex, Prospect Plaza, is being revitalized. Although the first renovation plans date from 1997, today three of the Prospect Plaza towers are standing like a ghost town. The windows are scattered and the wind and rain whistle through the buildings. They have been vacant since 2003 and no renovation plans have been started in all those years. The fourth tower has been demolished in 2005, leaving a huge vacant lot. Today this lot is still as vacant as in 2005. The revitalizing of the Prospect Plaza complex seems to be an everlasting story.

1974

2012

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Prologue The Prospect Plaza towers1 have been built in 1974 by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). The complex originally consisted of four high-rise buildings with 12 to 15 stories. A total of 1.171 residents once filled the 368 apartment units. The complex is bordered by Saratoga and Howard Avenues, St. Marks and Sterling Place and is situated in Ocean Hill-Brownsville, Brooklyn.

Today 20.814 people or almost 20 % of the inhabitants of Ocean-Hill Brownsville are being housed by the NYCHA2. Therefore, this community district has the highest concentration of public housing in New York City. Unfortunately all these public housing projects, and especially the ‘tower-in-thepark’-complexes, have become associated with a higher crime rate, a racial segregation and a concentration of poverty3.

Prospect Plaza was an extremely low-income development, since the average family earned approximately $ 11.700 a year4. This meant that their house-hold income was less than one-third of the average income of a New York City household. In fact, the situation was even worse, given that the Prospect Plaza residents had large families. These undesirable conditions made Prospect Plaza a very interesting choice for the NYCHA to renovate, although the towers are fairly new, compared to the rest of New York City’s public housing inventory. Like any other Housing Authority in the United States, the NYCHA could get money for renovations through the federal HOPE VI program.

1 NEW YORK CITY HOUSING AUTHORITY, NYCHA Housing Developments - Prospect Plaza, http://www.nyc.gov/html/ nycha/html/developments/bklynprospect.shtml, last visited: 08/10/2011.

2 NEW YORK CITY HOUSING AUTHORITY, Re-vision Prospect Plaza – A community planning workshop, June 2010, http://www.revisionprospectplaza.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/RPP_ppwguide.pdf, last visited: 08/10/2011.

3 WILLIAMS, Sabrina L., From HOPE VI to HOPE archives/2003/0703williams.html, last visited: 08/10/2011.

SICK,

July/Aug

2003,

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/

4 NEUWIRTH, Robert, Tower wreckers, in: City Limits, 2001 (25) nr 7, pp. 14-18.

(Left page) The plans are redrawn from: PLUNZ, Richard, “Endgame: in the Bubble - New York City Housing Production 1978-2008”, in: Lotus, 2011, 147, p. 90 - 103.

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The HOPE VI program HOPE VI5 is a federal funding program under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Design (HUD). It stands for ‘Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere’. In 1992 the National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing (NCSDPH) surveyed 1.2 million units of public housing in the United States. The survey concluded that 86.000 units or about 6 % of the public housing inventory were in a severely distressed condition. The NCSDPH called for a revitalization of these distressed units by providing money to the Public Housing Authorities, so they can address the housing and social service needs. It recommended that demolishing should be on a onefor-one basis. Based on these recommendations, the Congress appropriated the first HOPE VI funds that same year, but it lasted until 1999 before the federal HOPE VI program was authorized.

Unfortunately the requirement of a replacement on a one-for-one basis was excused. This would have an enormous impact on HOPE VI projects all over the country.

HOPE VI aims at new mixed-income developments, where home-owners and renters would live side by side. This was in fact also the initial goal of public housing, although this goal was never reached. A mixed-income approach would hinder any concentration of poverty. To get this economical diversity, the HUD requires for a HOPE VI project also to be ‘mixed financed’. The federal funding needs to leverage dollars from the private sector. Off course private developers are euphoric to build these projects, since a mixed-income program would mean higher profits for them. The HOPE VI program seems to shift the former public housing funding to the construction of new units, which will be rented or sold at market rate.

At this moment the HOPE VI program has demolished more than 100.000 severely distressed public housing units across the United States6. This number clearly exceeds the 86.000 units, which the NCSDPH surveyed as dangerous or unhealthy. Also the number of replaced units is far below the number of demolished units. In the magazine ‘Dollars and Sense’7, Sabrina Williams speaks of a ‘replacement of only one affordable unit for every five destroyed’. Since the new constructions are mixed-income developments, the actual number of available new housing units for low-income is even less. This results in the fact that most of the former residents, once a project is being revitalized through HOPE VI, are unlikely to ever return home.

In fact, this is exactly the goal of HOPE VI. The program is born because the nation’s grand experiment with public housing had failed8. In the beginning public housing intended social welfare, but these projects resemble now eternal ghettos. HOPE VI does not try to create more public 5 WILLIAMS, Sabrina L., From HOPE VI to HOPE archives/2003/0703williams.html, last visited: 08/10/2011.

SICK,

July/Aug

2003,

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/

6 NEW YORK CITY HOUSING AUTHORITY, Re-vision Prospect Plaza – A community planning workshop, June 2010, http://www.revisionprospectplaza.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/RPP_ppwguide.pdf, last visited: 08/10/2011.

7 WILLIAMS, Sabrina L., From HOPE VI to HOPE archives/2003/0703williams.html, last visited: 08/10/2011.

SICK,

July/Aug

8 NEUWIRTH, Robert, Tower wreckers, in: City Limits, 2001 (25) nr 7, pp. 14-18.

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2003,

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/

housing units. Instead it attempts to shrink the number of units and it prefers to tear down high-rise buildings, which are associated with an increased crime. Although it might seem an improvement to replace the high-rise tower-in-the-park buildings with townhouses, the math is inescapable: HOPE VI reduces the supply of affordable housing units.

This huge gap between the amount of low-income units, which have been destroyed, and the amount of new low-income units, is solved by a voucher program. Former residents who didn’t get a place in the new project are being offered places in other public housing projects or Section 8 vouchers. These Section 8 vouchers make it possible for a family to rent a unit at market rate, up to a certain limit that differs per location. The family will then only have to pay one third of its monthly income to the renter. The remaining difference between the rent the family paid and the actual market rate rent, is then covered by the Housing Authority. An interesting aspect is that these Section 8 vouchers don’t restrict a family to a certain city, but they are allowed to rent anywhere in the United States. This voucher system allows neighborhoods of concentrated poverty to deconcentrate, creating safer and better neighborhoods. Unfortunately, today, the Section 8 program is suffering from budget cuts and uncertainty9.

Getting funding from HOPE VI In 1997, the NYCHA tried to get funding through the federal HOPE VI program to renovate the Prospect Plaza Towers. Its proposal was renovating all four Prospect Plaza high-rise buildings and adding new townhouses at the nearby vacant lots. Since the tenants couldn’t see a downside, they all approved. Unfortunately the HUD rejected the plan, because it would not decrease the density of the complex.

One year later the NYCHA came up with a new proposition: the tower at 430 Saratoga Avenue would be demolished, since it suddenly appeared to have a wide range of structural problems10.

But it’s unclear if the HUD ever received any documentation of these problems11. This tower would become one of the firsts public housing towers ever to be demolished in New York City, since the NYCHA had always preferred preservation and renovation, rather than demolishing12. The three other Prospect Plaza towers would still be renovated, and the townhouses would still be added. Since this proposal did decrease the density, the HUD accepted the plans and made $ 22 million available in 1999 for the actual renovation, the demolition and the construction of the new townhouses. Between 2001 and 2003 the 365 families occupying Prospect Plaza were being relocated to various other public housing projects over the city or they were handed Section 8

9 MARKEY, Eileen, When Brooklyn Projects go down, what will go up?, Aug 19th 2010, http://www.citylimits.org/news/ articles/4152/when-brooklyn-projects-go-down-what-will-go-up, last visited: 08/10/2011.

10 LIFF, Bob, City to raze project 15-story building set for demolition in Prospect Plaza, in: Daily News (New York), 1999, Sept 19th, Suburban: p. 2.

11 NEUWIRTH, Robert, Tower wreckers, in: City Limits, 2001 (25) nr 7, pp. 14-18.

12 FERNANDEZ, Manny, Public housing project to come tumbling down, in: The New York Times, 2010, Feb 6th, p. A13.

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Phase I - Family houses

Phase III - Towers Phase II - Rental units

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vouchers13.

Home-ownership units and rental units In 2003 the NYCHA started to build 37 two-family houses14 nearby the Prospect Plaza site, at Dean St. and Sterling Place. They consist each of an affordable rental unit on the ground floor, with an owner-occupied duplex on top. This would create a mix of income in these townhouses.

The construction was the first phase of the three-phase revitalisation of Prospect Plaza. The construction was completed in 2005. Thirty-two of these newly built units were purchased by former public housing residents, although only one was a former Prospect Plaza resident.

In 2005 the tower at 430 Saratoga Avenue and its adjacent community centre were being demolished, making place for a new community centre and rental units. The second phase started in 2007 with the construction of the 150 rental units nearby the two empty Prospect Plaza towers by a private developer. They would become four-story high townhouses. The construction was completed in 2009. Forty-five of these rental units are set aside for former residents or other public housing residents, who are in possession of Section 8 vouchers15.

Renovation turning into demolition The final phase would have been the rehabilitation of the three remaining Prospect Plaza towers.

In 2003 Michaels Development Company16 (MDC), a real estate company based in New Jersey, was hired to renovate them. But in 2007 this contract was terminated by the NYCHA because the company couldn’t get a financially interesting plan. In April 2008 MDC sued the NYCHA for breaking the contract. This lawsuit stalled the project. In 2010 the NYCHA decided to tear down the three remaining towers of Prospect Plaza, since that would make financially more sense. It’s the first time New York City will demolish an entire high-rise tower-in-the-park project17.

In June 2010, a blueprint for the future has been formed on a three-day lasting community workshop

13 NEW YORK CITY HOUSING AUTHORITY, Re-vision Prospect Plaza – A community planning workshop, June 2010, http://www.revisionprospectplaza.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/RPP_ppwguide.pdf, last visited: 08/10/2011.

14 GRACE, Melissa, Townhouses lift Brownsville hope, in: Daily News (New York), 2003, Aug 1st, Suburban: p. 1.

15 MARKEY, Eileen, When Brooklyn Projects go down, what will go up?, Aug 19th 2010, http://www.citylimits.org/news/ articles/4152/when-brooklyn-projects-go-down-what-will-go-up, last visited: 08/10/2011.

16 FERNANDEZ, Manny, Public housing project to come tumbling down, in: The New York Times, 2010, Feb 6th, p. A13.

17 MARKEY, Eileen, When Brooklyn Projects go down, what will go up?, Aug 19th 2010, http://www.citylimits.org/news/ articles/4152/when-brooklyn-projects-go-down-what-will-go-up, last visited: 08/10/2011.

(Left page) Source of the phasing scheme: NEW YORK CITY HOUSING AUTHORITY, Re-vision Prospect Plaza – A community planning workshop, June 2010, http://www.revisionprospectplaza.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/RPP_ ppwguide.pdf, last visited: 08/10/2011.

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Design principles of the community plan - Demolish existing three vacant towers: build at least 368 new housing units - Maintain the neighborhood scale: up to six-story buildings - Allow for housing type diversity: seniors and families - Create safe streets: provide more entrances at grade - Integrate green spaces into each site: pocket parks and green backyards - Allow for quality retail spaces: Fresh Foods supermarket and small neighborhood stores - Incorporate sustainable design: materials, systems and building layouts

Actual components of the community plan - 360 housing units, including two walk-up buildings and five elevator buildings - 16,600 square feet of open space, including two 5,000 square foot pocket parks and a 6,600 square foot terrace as part of the building on the Saratoga Park site - 12,000 square feet of community facility space, including a 2,000 square foot community room on Prospect Place South and a 10,000 square foot community centre on the Saratoga Park site - 32,860 square feet of retail space, including a 20,000 square foot Fresh Foods supermarket and a 3,000 square foot neighborhood store on the Saratoga Park site, and four neighborhood stores on Prospect Place South, along Saratoga Avenue - 30,000 square foot community park on the site adjacent to the Saratoga Park site - 120 parking spaces across all three NYCHA sites

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“Re-Vision Prospect Plaza”18 with input from community stakeholders and some former residents19.

The first day of the community workshop, a tour on site was planned. Every participant made observations of the positive and negative qualities of the site. Later, after being divided in groups, they came up with a list, to ensure the qualities of neighborhood and improve its shortcomings.

Sherida Paulsen of PKSB Architects was the lead architect of the workshop. After her presentation about the site, a ‘design-with-icons’-session was held. The icons corresponded to scaled versions of the desirable functions. The groups explored a total of six concepts.

What all these concepts had in common was that all the high-rise buildings were being removed.

Although this argument points toward the demolishing of the Prospect Plaza complex, it should be said that only 50 people were present at the workshop, and not all of them were former residents of the projects20. All participants agreed to rename the Prospect Plaza site to Prospect Place North, Prospect Place South and Saratoga Park.

The design session continued the second day. At the end of the day, the design team reduced the concepts of the six groups to two different design options. On the final day the workshop was concluded with a final presentation of the workshop results. These results have now become recommendations for the further development plans of Prospect Plaza, and call for the demolition of the three remaining vacant towers and the construction of new buildings up to six stories.

Based the community plan, the NYCHA has now issued, together with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), a “request for proposal”, which calls for the design, construction and administration of a mixed-use development by a private developer21.

The development will result, along with ground-floor retail space and a community centre, in 360 new housing units, of whom only 80 will be actual public housing. The other 280 units will be affordable housing. The NYCHA and HPD will choose the private developer by fall 2012, and expect the entire development to be completed by 2017.

18 NEW YORK CITY HOUSING AUTHORITY, Re-vision Prospect Plaza – A community planning workshop – Volume 2, June 2010, http://www.revisionprospectplaza.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/RPP_pwguide.pdf.zip, last visited: 08/10/2011.

19 NEGRÓN, Zodet, Redevelopment of Prospect Plaza Underway, Jan 12th 2012, http://www.revisionprospectplaza. com/?page_id=106&paged=2, last visited: 22/05/2012.

20 MARKEY, Eileen, When Brooklyn Projects go down, what will go up?, Aug 19th 2010, http://www.citylimits.org/news/ articles/4152/when-brooklyn-projects-go-down-what-will-go-up, last visited: 08/10/2011.

21 NEGRÓN, Zodet, Redevelopment of Prospect Plaza Underway, Jan 12th 2012, http://www.revisionprospectplaza. com/?page_id=106&paged=2, last visited: 22/05/2012.

(Left page) Source of the community plans, design principles and actual components: NEW YORK CITY HOUSING AUTHORITY, Re-vision Prospect Plaza – A community planning workshop – Volume 2, June 2010, http://www. revisionprospectplaza.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/RPP_pwguide.pdf.zip, last visited: 08/10/2011.

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Epilogue Since 1997, the Prospect Plaza complex is in process of being revitalized. Therefore, all of the former tenants have been temporarily being relocated, leaving vacant towers, looming over the neighborhood. One of the four towers was being demolished, because a decrease in density was demanded by the federal HOPE VI funding program. Unfortunately, when the private contractor wasn’t able to realize an economically interesting renovation plan for the three remaining towers, the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) decided to demolish the three remaining towers.

It seems that the future development of Prospect Plaza will be based on the community plan ‘ReVision Prospect Plaza’. Here, the typology of the high rise tower-in-the-park will be replaced by a neighborhood-scale development, up to six stories. These neo-traditional row houses, replacing towers-in-the-park all over the United States, represent unquestionably a more liveable alternative.

But, it’s also clear that the HOPE VI program has caused a displacement of 90 % of the former tenants22.

Prospect Plaza is not a story of absolute failure, nor one of overwhelming success23. Although the Section 8 program is suffering from budget cuts and uncertainty, the newly built townhouses and rental units manage to provide housing for former public housing residents. But, probably less than half of the former Prospect Plaza residents will ever be able to return home.

Ocean-Hill Brownsville has one of the highest percentages of tower-in-the-park typologies in New York City. 20 % of Ocean-Hill Brownsville’s inhabitants rely on public housing. Although the tower-in-the-park might represent a failed chapter in the United States housing history, it still is part of the neighborhoods history and identity. Unlike many other cities across the United States, New York City has more or less resisted the national trend towards demolition of high-rise public housing projects, with a policy that is mainly guided by repair and maintenance24. Unfortunately, a continuous disinvestment by the government in the NYCHA is resulting in the disrepair of public housing projects, the decrease of supportive services for the residents and rising rents.

“Plan NYCHA: A Roadmap for Preservation“25, announced in December 2011, forms the positive beginning of a highly needed conversation that seeks solutions to the challenges of providing public 22 SORKIN, Michael, The End(s) of Urban Design, in: SORKIN, Michael, All Over the Map, Verso, New York, 2011, pp.

287-309.

23 MARKEY, Eileen, When Brooklyn Projects go down, what will go up?, Aug 19th 2010, http://www.citylimits.org/news/ articles/4152/when-brooklyn-projects-go-down-what-will-go-up, last visited: 08/10/2011.

24 DODGE, David, An Overview of New York Public Housing, Sept 2009, http://www.cdp-ny.org/report/NYpublichousing_ sept09.pdf, last visited: 14/02/2012.

25 NEW YORK CITY HOUSING AUTHORITY, Plan NYCHA: A Roadmap for Preservation, Dec 2011, http://www.nyc.gov/ html/nycha/downloads/pdf/plan-nycha.pdf, last visited: 14/02/2012.

(Left page) Source of the pictures: NEW YORK CITY HOUSING AUTHORITY, Re-vision Prospect Plaza – A community planning workshop – Volume 2, June 2010, http://www.revisionprospectplaza.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/RPP_ pwguide.pdf.zip, last visited: 08/10/2011.

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and affordable housing in New York City. The NYCHA ensures that it will preserve its current aging public housing stock and increase the supply of affordable housing for future generations. But, because of the shrinking funding sources, the NYCHA states that it cannot do it alone. The model of public housing needs to be adapted to be more financially, socially and environmentally sustainable.

There seems no escape from pursuing private partnerships to realise new developments on NYCHA sites. The inclusionary zoning policy, which offers a floor area bonus for the preservation or creation of affordable housing, helps to make affordable housing economically interesting for private developers.

The Prospect Plaza towers are the first public housing project that will go down in New York City26.

John B. Rhea, chairman of the NYCHA, says27 that he looks forward to revitalisation of Prospect Plaza as a model for future development. Although Plan NYCHA28 still prefers preservation, will the demolition of high-rise towers-in-the-park in favour of homogenizing neo-traditional row houses become the only and inevitable solution for the aging Modernist towers-in-the-park?

26 MARKEY, Eileen, When Brooklyn Projects go down, what will go up?, Aug 19th 2010, http://www.citylimits.org/news/ articles/4152/when-brooklyn-projects-go-down-what-will-go-up, last visited: 08/10/2011.

27 NEW YORK CITY HOUSING AUTHORITY, Prospect Plaza RFP Released, Dec 20th 2011, http://www. revisionprospectplaza.com/?p=774, last visited: 22/05/2012.

28 NEW YORK CITY HOUSING AUTHORITY, Plan NYCHA: A Roadmap for Preservation, Dec 2011, http://www.nyc.gov/ html/nycha/downloads/pdf/plan-nycha.pdf, last visited: 14/02/2012.

(Left page) Source of the picture: NEW YORK CITY HOUSING AUTHORITY, Re-vision Prospect Plaza – A community planning workshop, June 2010, http://www.revisionprospectplaza.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/RPP_ppwguide.pdf, last visited: 08/10/2011.

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2 waterfront projects in manhattan and brooklyn Dorien Pelst This casestudy compares two waterfront projects. ‘The East River Waterfront Esplanade’ by the city of New York itself, and ‘Performance Park’ by HM White Architects for a designcompetition.

There is a clear difference in designquality and in the use of green between the two projects. One project uses vegetation only as an esthetical asset whereas the other project also benefits from the ecological and water absorbing qualities of wetlands.

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1. Continuous Manhattan Greenway

2. Location of the East River Waterfront Esplanade project

3. Pier 35

Project Title: East River Waterfront Esplanade Locations: Lower Manhattan, New York Architects: SHoP Architects, Ken Smith Landscape Architects Engineering: Daniel Frankfurt, Ove Arup, ERW construction manager City: NYC Economic Development Corporation, Department of City Planning, Department of Parks and Recreation, Department of Transportation, Office of Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding All images courtesy: NYC government | http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/erw/erw.shtml

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4. Established and broken links between city and waterfront

5. East River with piers, 1920

6. Pier 15 with view on Downtown Brooklyn

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East river waterfront esplanade

The East River Waterfront Esplanade was part of Vision 2002 for Lower Manhattan by Mayor Bloomberg. This project should be revitalizing the abandoned waterfront by connecting the city to the waterfront, creating a continuous Manhattan Greenway and activating new commercial, recreational and cultural activities. The project will be completed in two phases: a first part from Maiden Lane to Wallstreet which was finished in July 2011, and the second part from Wall street to East River Park. The completion of the whole project is planned in 2013, by then “the two-mile esplanade will provide a contiguous pedestrian walkway and a bicycle pathway along the East River from Battery Park to East River Park.�

The site consists of two community districts, districts 1 and 3. The esplanade will form a link between the financial district, the South Street Seaport, Chinatown and the Lower East Side. The government will be funding 150 million dollar for this project.

Historically, the first Europeans settled here and as the city grew the island expanded into the river by filling the natural wetlands of Mannahatta. Now the current shoreline lays more than 3 blocks further than the original shoreline. Soon the East River Waterfront became a key location for maritime activity. In the 1950’s there were over 40 piers along these two miles of waterfront alone! Less than 10 piers are remaining today. Since industry moved away to cheaper land and with the decrease of maritime activity, several masterplans have been made to revitalize the abandoned waterfront. Until now none of these waterfront plans have been realized. Design challenges include: blocked access to the waterfront, underutilized waterfront, and the lack of public use and enjoyment of the shoreline.

In 2004 the Department of City Planning initiated the East River Waterfront Esplanade with the other departments. They based the design on extensive input meetings with the local community, area elected officials, City and State agencies and civic associations. They claim the project to be flexible and diverse.

The main goal of the esplanade is to link the city to the water and link parks on the Manhattan greenway. To realize the idea of a green belt, the designers have added a lot of landscape plantings and trees composed of native coastal species. These plantings give an idea of the variety of original upland and coastal vegetation: canopy trees, shrubs, flowers and grasses.

Along the greenway there is also a continuous bikeway separated from the traffic so cyclists can finally bike safely along the waterfront.

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7. Plantings and seating

8. Bar stools looking towards East River and Brooklyn

9. Look-out feature near Wall Street

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East river waterfront esplanade

On the other hand, the esplanade also wants to refer to the maritime character and history of the place. Seating furniture is designed as boxes and crates waiting on the river’s edge to be picked up by a ship, like during the days it was North America’s largest harbor. The railing along the waterfront is wide so people will feel invited to eat, read or work there with amazing view on the waterfront of Brooklyn.

The historical slips are designed as “Look-outs”. These slips were places where the water slipped into the city. At these places the designers provided the opportunity to get down closer to the water by carving a large stair or auditorium into the sea wall.

The FDR Drive is another element that has influenced the design of the East River Waterfront Esplanade. It was built in the 1950’s and severed the city’s access to the East River dramatically.

Also the relationship between the upland communities and the waterfront. The designers proposed pavilions under the FDR Drive as catalysts for an active waterfront and a renewed connection. These pavilions will be used for community and commercial purposes. They also designed a special purple lighting system to highlight the FDR Drive at night.

The piers are usually used for recreational activities such as a maritime eductation center, a café, an amphitheater seating area, outdoor rooms for recreational activities, …

Although this project has won many prizes, like “Excellence on the waterfront Award” and “Award for excellence in design in 2010”, I do not believe this is the best bet for Manhattan’s waterfront and future. The waterfront was once a very active place during the maritime peak. It was an ecosystem on it’s own with abundant ships navigating up the East River, people working, packing and selling their products. The Department of City Planning claims to provide a diverse and flexible space, but I don’t see it. The planning easily leads to a green belt around Manhattan and Brooklyn, they are all variations of the same green space. And you can ask yourself: why does the greenway stay on the edge? Wouldn’t it be more interesting and diverse if the greenway would sometimes run between the buildings towards the center of the island and back to the water? Also, there seems to be a popular style when it comes to designing public spaces: concrete slabs, ecologically passive vegetation and seatings. The same look we also see in the more recent High Line project.

One of the main goals of the East River Waterfront Esplanade is to make the water accessible to the public. But if you look carefully the water is still not accessible. A railing and heightdifference block the way. Wouldn’t it be great if at some places you can actually touch the water? For example Newton Creek in Brooklyn provides the same stairs without a railing.

Nowadays a design competition is taking place to extend of the Esplanade to the Upper East Side between 60th street and 125th street. Will they make the same mistakes? Will they persist and make a continuous green esplanade around Manhattan and Brooklyn?

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10. Location at the waterfront of Williamsburg, Brooklyn

11. Topview

12. Rendering of Performance Park showing the green infrastructure, overlook pier and sundeck

Project Title: Performance Park Locations: Brooklyn, New York Design Firm: HM White Site Architects Organizers: Sucker Punch Competition Competition Title: Williamsburg Waterfront Performance Venue All images courtesy: HM White Site Architects | http://www.hmwhitesa.com/performance-park.html

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13. Different layers of the design

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Performance park

HM White Site Architects made this project as an entry for the Williamsburg Performance Venue Competition in 2010. This is an open international design competition for which SuckerPUNCH asks to design a music venue in the East River State Park in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Each year 10,000 fans come to these ‘Jelly Pool Parties’ concerts in summer and enjoy free performaces.

The program of the design consists of several stages, bathroom facilities, bar and food tents, a visitor center, a water feature, …The stages can be permanent or adaptable to different off seasonal events and functions, like outdoor markets, movie nights and other music events.

The site for the project is an old shipping dock from the 19th century, Palmer’s dock, and a marine rail terminal. During that time Williamsburg was especially used for industrial purposes because of its fortunate location along the East River. After the completion of the Williamsburg Bridge, the factories moved to cheaper locations leaving Williamsburg to become a place of crime and abandoned industrial sites. In the 80’s artists moved to Williamsburg after which it became a cultural center for art, music and entertainment. Since 2007 the site was opened as a public park and used for music venues, such as the ‘Jelly Pool Parties’.

HM White proposes to develop seven-acres of former industrial land on New York City’s East River as both: a dynamic public park organized for waterfront recreation (“Park”) a unique cultural venue choreographed for theatrical expression and experience (“Performance”) —“Performance Park”.

This is a beautiful example of how water shapes land. Water as the 6th Borough reclaiming the land during high tides.

14. Sections parallel and perpendicular on the water show the sculpted, active landscape

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15. Elevated promenade

16. Wetlands as recreational and waterretaining space

17. The slope of the landscape forms a natural arena

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Performance park

Their concept is based on the industrial heritage and the ecology of landscape and river. The industrial heritage appears as interactive infrastructures inspired by rail interchange systems.

These infrastructures extend the urban streetscape into the park. They form a network of paths, platforms and other structural elements, like pavilions and a tower. This network helps to emphasize the experience of the river’s edge, of the urban views and encourage performance and art installation potential. The paths not only link the street to the river and to the park, but also provides access to water taxis via an elevated promenade and views of the wetlands via an observation promenade. The platforms exist of a network of plazas and stages in the park.

They provide flexible spaces for public gathering, recreation, market, theatrical performances and other events. The pavilions house the visitors lounge, public restrooms, food kiosks, dressing rooms and a winter event gallery. Three crane towers control adaptable systems for lighting and projection screens for the stages.

The other part of the concept is the idea of Ecolandform. Before industrialization, the East River reached as far as Kent Avenue. But the natural wetlands were soon filled to form piers and train rail lines for the arising Harbor. HM White wants to bring the water back into the site by reintroducing wetlands which can flood due to tidal changes. This is a beautiful example of how water shapes land. Water as the 6th Borough reclaiming the land during high tides.

These wetlands make an excellent location for water recreation. To achieve this they sculpt the topography of the site as shown in the sections. Plantings restore the waterquality and wetland ecology. Even more these wetlands can capture stormwater and act as a bufferzone.

In contrast with the East River Waterfront Esplanade, this project has much more flexibility in organizing itself and coping with sea level changes. People can actually touch and enjoy the water. The paths and platforms act in the same way as the esplanade, but give a much more diverse feeling and is not over designed. The Landscape is allowed to change and can be used for much more different functions.

These two projects are both part of a bigger movement to make a greater, greener New York.

Everywhere along the Brooklyn and Manhattan waterfront, new projects arise trying to complete a continuous green belt to provide enough parkspace for all New Yorkers and to create a bufferzone for flooding. But in most projects vegetation is used as a passive and esthetic tool rather than an ecologically active opportunity. Green is used too literally. Flooding hazards ask for a soft edge for which the original wetlands of New York are probably the best solution. Also, ‘How it’s used’ is as important as ‘how it looks’ for a successful design of public space. Flexible use and program is needed to cope with natural hazards and people’s changing needs.

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Text references

NYC.gov, East River WaterfrontPark, 2011 http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/erw/erw.shtml (22/10/2011) NYCedc.com, East River Waterfront Esplanade, 2011 http://www.nycedc.com/projectsopportunities/currentprojects/manhattan/eastriverwaterfront/pages/eastriverwaterfront.aspx (22/10/2011) Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, The Plan for Lower Manhattan http://www.renewnyc.com/plan_des_dev/final_erw_env_impact_contents.asp (24/10/2011) Department of City Planning, Waterfront Design Guidelines Text Amendment, 2009 http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/waterfront/index.shtml (24/10/2011) Department of City Planning, Waterfront Public Access Design Standards Text Amendment, 2009 http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/waterfront/Presentation_4_2009.pdf (24/10/2011) Civitas, Reimagine the Waterfront, 2011-2012 http://reimaginethewaterfront-civitas.com/graphic-materials/ (23/10/2011) HM White Site Architects, Performance Park, 2010, http://www.hmwhitesa.com/performance-park.html (25/10/2011) HOLMES Damian, Williamsburg Waterfront Performance Venue|HM White, 2011 http://www.worldlandscapearchitect.com/?p=8095 (25/10/2011) Bustler.net, Winners of Williamsburg Waterfront Performance Venue Competition, 2010 http://www.bustler.net/index.php/article/winners_of_williamsburg_waterfront_performance_venue_competition (25/10/2011) suckerPUNCH, Williamsburg Waterfront Performance Venue, 2010 http://www.suckerpunchdaily.com/2010/04/18/williamsburg-waterfront-performance-venue/ (26/10/2011) Jordana Sebastian, Williamsburg Waterfront Performance Venue International Competition, 14 May 2010 http://www.archdaily.com/60072/williamsburg-waterfront-performance-venue-international-competition/ (26/10/2011)

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image references

Image 1. http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/erw/east_river_waterfront_book.pdf Image 2. http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/erw/east_river_waterfront_book.pdf Image 3. http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/erw/east_river_waterfront_book.pdf Image 4. http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/erw/east_river_waterfront_book.pdf Image 5. http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/erw/east_river_waterfront_book.pdf Image 6. http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/erw/east_river_waterfront_book.pdf Image 7. http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/erw/erw.shtml Image 8. http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/erw/erw.shtml Image 9. http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/erw/erw.shtml Image 10. http://www.worldlandscapearchitect.com/?p=8095 Image 11. http://www.worldlandscapearchitect.com/?p=8095 Image 12. http://www.hmwhitesa.com/performance-park.html Image 13. http://www.worldlandscapearchitect.com/?p=8095 Image 14. http://www.hmwhitesa.com/performance-park.html Image 15. http://www.hmwhitesa.com/performance-park.html Image 16. http://www.hmwhitesa.com/performance-park.html Image 17. http://www.hmwhitesa.com/performance-park.html

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Gateway Development Maximiliaan Royakkers Camiel Van Noten The fresh Creek area in the south of East New York is an exceptional piece of land in Brooklyn.

The creek is located in an undefined area, where the East New York’s grid gradually dissolves into Jamaica Bay’s landscape. Historically the site has always been unbuilt, until very recently the gateway development was planned. The two major components of this development are a 120.000m² retail area and 2500 new affordable housing units.

East New York is an economical disadvantaged region and has to deal with high unemployment rates and a median household income which is far below Brooklyn’s average. This case study will mainly focus on these influences of the big box retail store on its surroundings, both socioeconomically and morphologically. How does the suburban-style mall connect with East New York’s fabric? How does the creation of new jobs balance against the threat to local businesses? These delicate, but relevant, questions often result in a black and white discussion. By approaching the Gateway development in different perspectives, this case study tries to expose the complexity of these matters.

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Genealogy of the place1

In the 18th century East New York was known as village of New Lots, named after a settlement of the Dutch located on the east side of Brooklyn. The region was mostly rural with farming villages. The Fresh Creek was a part of the wetlands surrounding Jamaica Bay. Since the 1900s East New York gradually expanded southwards and many of the wetlands became urbanized. The meadows of Fresh Creek however remained agricultural even while the surrounding East New York neighborhoods grew and developed.

It was only after the construction of the Shore Parkway to the south in the 1940’s and a Ward Water Pollution Control Plant to the west in the 1950’s, that the City established the Fresh Creek Urban Renewal plan (FCURP) in 1967. The FCURP expressed the vision of the City to redevelop the area with a combination of residential and regional commercial functions with appropriate support facilities. After approval of the 1967 FCURP, the Brooklyn Developmental Centre and its adjacent streets were constructed as was the Thomas Jefferson Athletic Field, but the main part of the site remained vacant until the end of the 1990’s.

In 1996 HDP issued the second amended FCURP with the purpose to implement the land use plan of the 1967 FCURP. It specified a land use plan for the site and development controls in terms of use, density, and bulk. Financed by the HDP, Related Companies Inc., and Nehemiah Housing Development Fund Co. Inc., the program consisted of a 60.000 m² shopping centre, 2.385 residential units – both rental and owned – an elementary and intermediate school, 45 acres of public space and more than 2500 parking spaces.

In 2009 The HPD modified the FCURP for a second time. The biggest shift between the “1996 plan” and the proposition made in 2009 is the doubling of the surface area destined to the shopping centre. The current state of the site is a partial execution of the “1996 plan” and consists of the 60.000m² shopping mall, a 9.7-acre portion of the perimeter park and 378 Nehemiah housing units.

1 Genealogy: (from Greek: γενεά, genea, “generation”; and λόγος, logos, “knowledge”) is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history.

2 New York City Department of Housing Preservation & Development

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Residential Commercial Industrial and Manufacturing Public facilities Transportation and Utility Green

zoning plan 1996

1 family housing 2 family housing 3 family housing octets Residential/Commercial Commercial Green

develepment plan 2009

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Capitalist’s Garden of Eden1

Taking East New York’s history and current situation

in account, the region is waiting for an economic impulse. Scanning for a site to implement this impulse, the Fresh Creek site pops up. This vacant piece of land apparently contains all the possible requirements to be ‘garden of Eden’ for capitalist investments.

In a capitalist’s point of view, East New York, still struggling with unemployment, is an almost infinite source of low wage work force. A new large scale shopping center could possibly provide those highly wanted jobs the area needs. The people, on their turn, could profit from the lower prices that these big box stores offer. The area of East New York is pretty much a not yet explored consuming market, which is waiting to be conquered.2 Furthermore the 1967 zoning as commercial function makes a giant mall possible without extra requirements or lobbying for the City Council approval.

The fun doesn’t stop here. The location of the site next to the Belt Parkway, going from Queens around Brooklyn all the way to Manhattan, offers an immense opportunity for destination-retail. It is important to understand that the proximity of the parkway is crucial to even talk about destination-retail, where the mall is a place where the consuming crowd gathers to do all of their shopping at once. The image of the mall as a place for destination-retail can also serve the developers as an alibi to minimize the impact on the East-New York neighborhood. The mall is profiled as an annex to the Parkway and not so much as an element in East New York’s fabric.

“East New York is a not yet exploited area with a possible bright future ahead.

3

Although the center is not scheduled to open until fall 2002, it is already more than 88 percent leased, and leases for the rest of the space are now in negotiations, said Glenn Goldstein, vice president of the Related Retail Corporation, an affiliate of the related companies.4

”

1 Paradise used as a synonym for the Garden of Eden shares a number of characteristics with words for ‘walled orchard garden’ or ‘enclosed hunting park’ in Old Persian.

2 The New York Times, November 15, 2000, Wednesday, Late Edition – Final; East New York senses promise in a new mall And many neighborhood groups and residents also hope the mall will demonstrate to retailers a fact that many have been slow to accept: poor people have buying power too.

3 The New York Times, Jun 10, 2001, Late Edition - Final; East New York: a Neighborhood Reborn 4 The New York Times, May 16, 2001, Late Edition – Final; A Mall Planned for East New York is 88% Leased

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The price to pay

From the 1920’s through the early 1960’s, East New York was primarily a com-

munity of blue-collar Irish, Italians and Jews, lured there by its moderately priced row houses and tenements. But white flight took its toll from the late 60’s through the 1970’s, and the community -- particularly vulnerable because of its aging, low-rise housing stock - became a target for racial steering and redlining. With less affluent minority householders moving in, mostly as renters, the community’s population grew significantly during the 1980’s. At the same time, the lack of investing resulted in vacancy and housing decay, and the number of housing units dropped.

‘‘You had deterioration going on; people moving in because of lower rent, but living in more crowded conditions,’’ said Mr. Winston, an architect from Pratt Institute. ‘’People were living doubled-up next to vacant buildings - most of which had gone into foreclosure and been taken over by the city.1

”

In the 80’s roll-back neoliberalism the government retreated from previous control of resources and regularizations, including public services such as the providing of affordable housing. In these period, there’s an important shift towards private community groups on such needs as social services, schools, affordable housing, recreation, community gardens and local retail.

Working with these community groups the city would slowly refocus its housing efforts, turning toward programs in partnership with nonprofit groups that stressed, particularly, private homeownership.

“The Nehemiah concept was formally announced by Brooklyn’s Bishop Francis Mugavero and the East Brooklyn Churches at a press conference in June, 1982. Named for the biblical prophet who oversaw the reconstruction of the walls of Jerusalem, the plan is to build on the vast acres of vacant land in eastern Brooklyn and offer the homes to buyers with incomes be-

”

tween $20,000 and $40,000. - Humble Beginnings by Peter Kaseta,2

So far - primarily by selling city-owned property for $1 per lot, but also by underwriting low- or even no-interest loans - the HDP has helped create 2,216 owner-occupied homes in East New York. Of those, 516 are rehabs; the rest are newly constructed. It has also either helped renovate or build 2,870 rental units. The 2.385 units of the Gateway development fit in the current plans for the creation of another 3,087 units.

1 The New York Times, Jun 10, 2001, Late Edition - Final; East New York: a Neighborhood Reborn 2 “Humble Beginnings”, written by Peter Kasetathe Bulletin of the Province of Saint Mary, Volume 22, Number 2, February 1985, p.36

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The Gateway housing units fulfill a double role in the project: on one hand they are the outcome of the present housing strategy of the HDP, which implies a closer assistance for families through collaboration with non-profit community organizations; on the other hand the Gateway Estates are the price to pay for the Gateway Mall.

This becomes clear by taking a closer look at the financial structure of the project. Besides financing the extension of the mall, the Gateway Center Properties also have to provide 700 housing units and a wide range of public facilities. The affordable housing units are a social integrator, a compensation for the shopping mall. On the other hand the housing units could never be built without the mall. This is just the nature of a public-private partnership.

+

gateway

nehemiah CPC EBC HPD

+

the bradelwood organization

school

related partners

=

gateway development

new york city

Target Best-Buy Home Depot ...

financial structure

private investors public non-profit financial involvment program land provision

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Fictive Dialogues of Opinions NYC HPD: “analysis finds that the Proposed Action would not result in significant adverse impacts on socioeconomic conditions ... It … would not directly displace substantial numbers of businesses or employees, ...”1 LOCAL BUSINESS OWNER: “They killed us,” Bucich said. “They’ve taken a lot of business away from us. It doesn’t matter whether we are cheaper or not, people are going there simply because it’s there. It’s hard to compete, and all of the local businesses are being affected.”2 NYC HPD: This destination retail would not be neighborhood retail or service establishments, which tend to draw more frequent repeat visits from local residents. Because neighborhood retail or service establishments cater to a local neighborhood’s day-to-day needs, they have a stronger influence on the residential attractiveness of a neighborhood. The close proximity to this regional retail center would, therefore, not significantly affect the residential desirability of the neighborhood.3 E. P. Winston4 : “If you want to get a carton of milk, you don’t want to deal with what we call destination shopping,”5 ENY resident: ‘’They have everything pulling her grocery cart out of the Pathmark. ‘’I would just go there.’’ is certainly enticing for the many their pennies.

in one place,’’ Ms. Clement said, trunk of a livery cab outside of And a store promising low prices people who must carefully count

Walter Campbell6 : ‘’We’re already (before the Gateway Project) spending our money at these stores,’’ said Walter Campbell, the manager of Community Board 5. ‘’But we’ve had to go all the way to Nassau County and Jersey to do it because people don’t think of East New York as a place where people can afford nice things. 7 Census Data 2009: 60.2% of East New York’s households are car-free.

1 Gateway Estates II, Final Environmental Impact Statement, chapter 3: Socioeconomic Conditions, p.3.

49 2 New York Amsterdam News / Dec 23-Dec 29, 2010: Major retailers’ effect on mom-and-pop shops devastating 3 Gateway Estates II, Final Environmental Impact Statement, chapter 3: Socioeconomic Conditions, p.3.11 4 architectural director at the Pratt Center 5 East New York: a Neighborhood Reborn,Hevesi, Dennis, New York Times (1923-Current file); Jun 10, 2001 6 manager of Community Board 5 7 The New York Times, November 15, 2000, Wednesday, Late Edition – Final, East New York senses promise in a new mall

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Fictive Dialogues of Opinions II Mr. New York

Times: Fears of Wal-Mart Fill a Vacant Lot1

Mr. Wal-mart: “Wal-mart NYC would benefit, not harm New York residents.”

Ms. CURL2 : A key finding of the survey is that the probability of going out of business during the study period was significantly higher for establishments close to the Wal-Mart location.3 Mr. Wal-Mart: Actually, just the opposite is true. In the majority of cases across the country, our stores are a magnet for growth and development. As for compensation, our wages are as good - and often times better than - most competitors. Our average wage for full-time, regular associates in the state of New York is $13.09 per hour.

Reginald Bowman4 : We plan to make sure that the Wal-Mart chain and the economic recovery ideas that it represents comes into our community and solves a very important problem which is jobs.

Group of protesters: What do we want? – Jobs! When do we want it? – Now! Ms. CURL: “What this study confirms is that… there is a pie and you’re just divvying it up differently in terms of sales, number of jobs; it’s just shifting. This means that communities should not be so quick to see Wal-Mart as a panacea to local economic struggles. The development of such a store is one alternative, but not the only one.”

Mr. New York Times: Nearly 70 percent of city residents characterize the economy as being bad. And New Yorkers are chiefly interested in jobs and low-priced goods, even at the expense of neighborhood stores.

Recent polls place citywide support for Wal-Mart at over 60 percent.5

1 The New York Times, February 12, 2011 Saturday, Late Edition – Final Fears of Wal-Mart Fill a Vacant Lot 2 Center for Urban Research and Learning Loyola University Chicago 3 The Impact of an Urban Wal-Mart Store on Area Businesses: An Evaluation of One Chicago Neighborhood’s Experience, By Julie Davis, David Merriman, Lucia Samayoa, Brian Flanagan, Ron Baiman, and Joe Persky, December 2009 4 District Chair, Brooklyn East District 5 August 16, 2011, Poll Finds Bloomberg’s Approval Rating the Lowest in 6 Years, By DAVID W. CHEN and MARJORIE CONNELLY

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Dr. Warren1 : ‘’They’re trying to influence public opinion and create a political environment that’s supportive. Their ground campaign is going into neighborhoods and trying to basically win endorsements of noted leaders.’2 Mr. Wal-Mart: Since 2007, Wal-Mart has contributed close to $13 million to non-profit organizations based in New York City like the Summer Youth Employment Program, City Harvest, Dress for Succes, New Yorkers for Children and Food Bank for NYC, among others.

Mr. Wikipedia: Wal-Mart has a net income of 15.355 billion USD.

1 Dr. Warren teaches political science at Columbia University and is writing a book about Wal-Mart’s efforts to open stores in large cities 2 The New York Times, March 26, 2011 Saturday, Late Edition – Final, Wal-Mart Tries A Refined Path Into New York

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Artificial Arcadia The formal and spatial translation of the economic ambitions of the

gateway development illustrate the capitalist need for optimization of consumption. The main goal of the development is not to create a valuable space of place, but rather to optimize the shopping activity of it’s visitors. In the case of the gateway mall development, this economical way of designing finds its formal representation through the typology of the suburban strip mall. The strip mall is generally conceived as a strip of big-box retail stores with a sidewalk in front of it and combined with a larger parking area. The large parking space is necessary because of the car orientated and rather isolated character of the suburban environment. The only connector to the rest of the urban fabric is the network of roads and this gives the strip mall a characteristic of autonomy.

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Looking at the scheme of the gateway mall, the importance of the car becomes visible. The largest portion of the development is consumed by parking space. The parking space is designed as a transit zone, a space where the car is the dominant regime and where the presence of pedestrian activity is minimized. This indicates the ambition of the mall to characterize itself as a destination-retail orientated

logistic routes

mall typology linked to the Belt Parkway and not as an

heavy client traffic light client traffic

integrated part of the city fabric of East New York. This illustrates the way in which the gateway mall communicates to it’s surrounding fabric and translates it’s specific isolated condition into a spatial tactic. The purpose of the parking space is the organization of input and output of consuming clients and the storage of their cars in the most efficient way possible. The homogeneous asphalt surface organizes the hierarchy of car flows on the strip but does not give form to pedestrian flow and so the parking becomes a pedestrian-unfriendly environment. The interiorisation of space up to the entrance of the shopping mall is a social consequence of this lack of formal expression for pedestrians. By excluding the possibility for social interaction as far as possible, the shopping experience becomes a truly individual activity. Big-box retailers use this individual character of shopping by customizing their services to the scale of each individual customer.

The pedestrian-friendly outdoor space and possibility for interaction is reduced to the sidewalk in front of the different big-box stores. The sidewalk becomes the connector between the different retailers, a strip made for hanging out between shopping moments and also a secondary circulation route perpendicular to the car parking.

The concept of the strolling strip is traced back to the urban shopping experience, where the strip is the essential connector between all shop-windows. In the urban context it creates a terrain for endless choice of consumption for its visitors, where the shop-windows become attraction points that battle for the capital of the strolling audience. But in the context of the strip mall this idea of the sidewalk as a battleground for customers becomes more and more obsolete. The role of the shop-window is taken over by a new entity, the billboard. The car orientated shopping experience implies that the focus on attracting an audience is not related to the humane scale anymore but much more on the scale of the car. The large billboards and signs located at the edges of the site and closer to the road

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network express this shift in ways of attracting consuming public. Because of the smaller timeframe of possible attraction and the wider reach of this type of advertising, the billboards have a very large size and will only show very basic information like the store name or short slogans. The billboard is not only used as an advertising tool on the shopping mall site, it also becomes the most important way of identifying the different retailers on site and to direct possible clients to their front doors. Because the architecture of the mall is generic and thus lack any form of identity and because there is no differentiation between the architectures of the different retailers, the only way to create a distinct identity for each store becomes the billboard. By losing it’s potential to become a formal identifier for it’s client, architecture’s only role in this kind of development is to create ultimate flexibility of use. The relationship between the billboard and architecture becomes an alibi for creating generic constructions which are cheap, quickly constructed and less expensive. By creating a non figurative architecture for the total complex, the architecture does not create a hierarchy of units and thus no hierarchy in price. With this mechanism it becomes possible for the development to be designed before any client has been found and to switch between renters very easily. In such a way the gateway mall becomes a decorated shed defined by the billboard, and the image of the architecture of the mall itself becomes of secondary importance for the shopping process.

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To optimize the consumption pattern of its visitors, a very clear organization of the program is a way of creating a space that leaves as little space as possible free for interpretation and possible conflict with the consuming goals of the development.

The flows of the different player that act in the development define the organization of the site. The overall design is based on a strict separation of different circulation patterns to minimize possible interference between the different actors of the mall. A linear evolution of levels of publicness creates a clear front and backside to the development. Pointing its face towards the Belt Parkway and its back to the East New York urban fabric, the ambition of a destination retail development is formalized. Front and backside are mirror images, the front for input and output of people and the back for the input and output of material goods sold at the different retail stores. The mall creates a level of artificial reality where the consuming crowd never knows about the logistic mechanisms that create this consuming machine.

The strip mall acts as a bubble that protects the customer from the reality of the capitalist mechanisms at work.

Rood : Public (Parking space) Oranje: Semi - Publicgradient (Retail) public-private Geel: Private (Logistics) Grijs: Belt Parkway

This artificial reality is pushed to its limits in the interior organization of the big-box retail store. Entering these new worlds means leaving behind the reality of the large parking lot and strolling around in a climate-controlled, light controlled and color coordinate consuming space. Every architectural tool is used to express a spatial experience that serves the purpose of optimizing the shopping experience of each individual customer. The spatial expression of the mall itself resembles industrial constructions for service economies but by manipulating the architecture the experience of the space is optimized for consumption. The lighting is carefully selected for color, intensity and direction to optimize the shopping experience. Climate-control creates a 365 day constant pleasant temperature of around 20 degrees. Various circulation schemes and indicators hung all over the store create direction in the nondirectional space to guide the visitor as easy and quick as possible to all consuming goods. A hierarchy of space is created with zones of different groups of consuming goods and their relative location is based on consumption needs and not on any spatial or formal logics.

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Final thoughts During a discussion at Columbia University, following questions were asked: “Why

spend $192 million on a mall? Why not on a public park?”

Newspaper headlines, like “East New York senses promise in new mall” or “East New York a neighborhood reborn” create high social expectations for the Gateway mall. The project became East New York’s personal savior of blight.

The mall, however, never had the ambition to establish East New York’s economic recovery. It’s only goal was always to maximize the retailer’s profit, with an additional consequence of creating 2000 low-wage jobs in the East New York region.

No major new development is expected to be induced in the surrounding area as a result of the Proposed Action.1 In this scenario the city operates as a referee, trying to negotiate between two players from different teams. By adding housing program to the project both interest groups win something with this development. The plan for the expansion of the mall in 2008 demonstrates how far apart the real interests of the two players actually are. For us the fact that with this project people can have the opportunity to own a house on a responsible basis will have a much more sustainable economic impact on the East New York neighborhood. It is also important to realize that by building the Gateway in East New York, a totally new system is implemented into the urban tissue of the area. A retail mall tends to send much of its revenue out of local communities, while local businesses keep more consumer dollars in the local economy. The development could create a new kind of blight by leaving vacant, abandoned stores throughout East New York.

We believe these aren’t the right questions to ask. It is more a discussion about how to successfully integrate this shopping mall, as an inevitable element of contemporary society, into the urban tissue of city. Whether you like it or not, it will only be a matter of time before Wal-Mart will come New York City.

We question the choice of the suburban style mall typology. The suburban style mall is by definition destination retail orientated. The car is its only connection with the urban fabric. It is by definition alienated from the existing tissue, whether or not it’s surrounded by a 42.1 acre public park. Looking at the latest plan made for the site, there is no sign of integration of the mall into the urban fabric. We can read the plan as two individuals living together but separate. The parking lot serves as a buffer between two completely opposite worlds. A lack of integration is the biggest shortcoming of the Gateway Development.

1 Gateway Estates II, Final Environmental Impact Statement, chapter 25: Growth-Inducing Aspects of the Proposed Action, p.25.1

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gateway mall

gateway mall

gateway mall

local economy vs. multinational economy

isolation vs. integration

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revaluating the elevated Pieter Vandenhoudt Since the upsurge of transport planning and higher needs of transporting people over longer distances, the public transit system of New York City has evolved towards one of the greatest in the world. Because of problems of interaction with street traffic several transit lines were set elevated in the end of 19th and the beginning of 20th century. During further development of the transit system different lines went out of order and fell into decay causing danger of falling construction elements. Therefore several lines were demolished. Recently the remaining elevated tracks are gaining back in attention and are getting repaired with the focus on new or additional uses.

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Infrastructure as urban opportunity

For the last five decades urbanism has been characterized by an upcoming dominance of mobility issues. The influence of transportation can’t be underestimated, even more so it is impossible to imagine a world without car, bus, train, subway, bike or airplane. After the car’s reign we are now arriving at an era where public transport is growing in importance with a special focus on light rail and subway. Transporting millions of people a day in metropolitan areas, the subway can be seen as the most efficient means of public transportation over long distances in little time. Considering its 230 miles of routes, a total of 468 station operating 24/7 for its annual 1.4 billion users, the New York City Subway is among the busiest urban transit system in the 1 world .

Since the decay of the Brooklyn elevated railroad tracks in the 1970s and their renovation 2 in the 80s the MTA (Metropolitan Transport Authority) is facing new upgrades, repairs and replacements of its infrastructure. Most of these ‘elevated monsters’ were built between the end of nineteenth century and 1930’s and form part of almost tirthy percent of all rapid transit in Brooklyn. Exceeding the scale of the individual these infrastructures are in most cases accompanied with vacancy and parking or storage, lacking any place of value beyond them.

In an era of recurrent concerns to the people in the street and the human scale in the city, new possibilities for the elevated are developed towards the contemporary urban discourse on the concept of infrastructural re-occupation.

This case study investigates some very recent projects in the city of New York exploring the idea of the elevated as opportunity for new urban places with the need of activating urban voids by which they are surrounded. New design concepts, adaptive re-use, unconventional development strategies and a flexible approach to program can help activate infrastructure for both public use and local benefit. Mainly since the opening of the High Line the combination of urban infrastructure and urban park development is increasingly seen as a locus of opportunity.

1 2

MTA INFO, MTA Facts and Figures, 2012, http://www.mta.info/nyct/facts/ffsubway.htm, last visited: 18/04/2012.

FIENMAN, Mark S, The New York City Transit Authority in the 1970s and 1980s , 2002, http://www.nycsubway.org/articles/history-nycta1970s.html, last visited: 17/04/2012. http://www.nycsubway.org/articles/history-nycta1980s.html, last visited: 17/04/2012.

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Meatpacking District Manhattan

James Corner Field Operations Diller Scofodio + Renfro

First section 2009 Second section 2011 Third section under construction

the high line

“

One of the things I admire the most about the High Line is that it’s taking an old piece of New York infrastructure and brilliantly repurposed it without turning it into an exercise in nostalgia.

“

Richard Lacayo, TIME Magazine Art and Architecture Critic, 2009

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The High Line

CONTEXT Because of its pioneering role in the combination of aged urban infrastructure with contemporary green environmental issues the history and design of the High Line is indispensable in this case-study. The 1.5-mile long linear park situated in the west side of Manhattan provides new ways of experiencing green, right in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world.

After the departure of its last running train in 1980 the Manhattan West Side elevated railroad fell into oblivion for about twenty years. During this period different efforts were made for both demolishing and preserving the structure until the New York City administration of mayor Giuliani planned for demolishing as the line laid unused and in disrepair. In the years of forgetfulness a thin layer of soil had formed in some areas and a self-sown wilderness had created its own beauty which appealed to some local residents. In 1999 Friends of the High Line was formed to advocate for the Line’s preservation with an eye on public reuse in the concept of an elevated park. With lots of community support and thanks to interest of the new mayor Bloomberg, the Friends of the High Line succeeded in saving the West Side Line from demolition in 2001.

DESIGN The design concept is starting from the dilemma to preserve the spontaneous beauty without underestimating the intended use, popularity and scale of this project as a new public space. Started from how to create a pathless landscape (where the distinction between plantings and path is not strictly defined) the idea grew about making a planked pathway which is integrating with the vegetation and results in a system of varying ratios from hard to soft surfaces.

The development of the pathway starts from elements of five pre-cast concrete planks whereby both hard and soft areas can be provided and by which the existing railway can be integrated.

In this system the amount of paving is calibrated to accommodate a variety of uses with specific locations among the structure.

For example seating is developed as a simple system of benches, fixed and movable chairs, which allows for multiple arrangements located on paths, in gathering spaces, in alcoves and in overlooks. Specific configurations accommodate everyday activities and small scale gatherings still allowing sufficient flexible places for special events. Along its route the pathless landscape contains different places and buildings providing different identities and activities for all varieties of users.

REAL ESTATE As a consequence of the park’s attractivity different real estate agents are attracted to the surrounding area with the eye on future development. Since the arrival of first developers prices in the area are risen, causing a new gentrification effect in the neighborhood.

Original residents cannot afford living there anymore and have to move, making place for the richest and small restaurants and bars have to make place for more expensive shops. As well a real estate highlight will be reached with the Hudson Yards Redeveloment Project.

Another turn of the coin is a drug-selling problem under the elevated structure because of lack of attention given to the ground level of the area. Recent changes are made by the organization of events on ground level like the 2011 High Line Rink at the end of section 2

VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W2Yq1zzxAc

3

According to the Hudson Yards Development Corporation the area has a surface of 26 million square feet and will be developed to reach a capacity of 26 million square feet of new office development, 20000 units of housing, 2 million square feet of retail and 3 million square feet of hotel space.

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Looking East on 30th Street on a Morning in May, 2000 Photograph by Joel Sternfield

Gansevoort Entry, section 1, Gansevoort Street Photograph by James Corner Field Operations

Platform with a view over 10th Avenue, section 1, 17th Street Photograph by James Corner Field Operations

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Ratio’s in soft and hard pavement and varying vegetation and walking heights.

Image by Diller Scofido + Renfro

Small tribune and grass field, section 2, 22nd - 23rd Street Photograph by James Corner Field Operations

Elevated platforms, section 2, 25th - 26th Street Photograph by James Corner Field Operations

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Long Island City Queens

Marpillero Pollak Architects Margie Ruddick (WRT-design)

2012

queens plaza

“

It feels like there is starting to be an awareness of a wealth of public space, previously unnoticed. The potential is incredible; these places are magic.

Sandro Marpillero, Marpillero Pollak Architects, 2009

“

“

Pedestrians emerge from the subway disoriented. We wanted the place to ground you somewhere.

“

Linda Pollak, Marpillero Pollak Architects, 2009

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Queens Plaza

CONTEXT The Queens Plaza Bicycle and Pedestrian Landscape Improvement is about the transformation of an area overwhelmed by an enormous tangle of urban infrastructure dissecting Long Island City. The design is focused on the organization of various flows and scales in the area together with providing a refuge for passers-by and residents in a new concept of urban green. The concept of the design redefines the existing infrastructure by the integration of nature, art, ecology and bringing back the human scale into the area.

The site is completely dominated by the Elevated while most plans of the site do not register its presence. Instead of ignoring the overwhelming modernistic structure it is up to urban designers and landscape architects to redefine these structures into a new concept where attention is given to the scale of the individual. The main objectives for the Queens Plaza Bicycle and Pedestrian Landscape Improvement are designing a place that brings back this personal scale into the area with a clear landscape that easily explains how to move through and where people are stimulated to lounge around or return later. The idea behind the design is that something hard, urban and harsh can operate in an ecological way. An idea that is gaining in attention in the language of landscape architects since the existence of the High Line. Both projects are examples of immersive green landscapes that alter the conventional notion of what can be understood as an urban park and where a language of green, beauty and lushness can coexist with the hard edge of infrastructure.

The Queens Plaza project consists in a broader context of a 1.3 mile intervention running along the elevated structure starting from the Queensboro Bridge and is translated into a linear landscape of medians and streetscape meeting in the JFK Park. The project is part of a street network but will operate as a park where our common perception of an urban park is altered since clear boundaries are absent.

DESIGN The main design idea is the creation of an urban canopy to visually organize the already present elements. The Elevated of Queens Plaza is transformed to address two aspects of its historical layering. In the first place its direct surroundings have to be more legible by making a more constituent trajectory of the structure’s different modules. Next the presence of the abandoned tracks need to be highlighted in order to offer a wayfinding clue. The boring, overwhelming structure is transformed into an elegant lantern-like series of sculptural spaces suspended above the flow of people and traffic below. The sense of legibility is provided by the integration of different landscape elements across scales, from benches and street furniture to landscape and topography.

The personal and clever aspects of the design are situated in the very precise details to address to an intimate scale of the place. The way of how is dealt with storm water is carefully designed by artist Michael Singer who created a system of interlocking, permeable pavers that can manage and filter storm water through various kinds of planting and serves as hard walking surfaces at the same time. When putting two pavers together a little peephole appears so water can flow down into the planting.

Another goal was the remake of the JFK Park so passers-by would have the sense of being a refuge while at the same time the place should manage the flows in and out the refuge together with the other flows of the trains and the traffic. Turning the arrival of the trains on the Elevated into an event, the aspect of the flow and the scale of the train have been engaged at the individual scale. This makes the arriving train part of the perception of the public space instead of a noisome distraction from it.

Video: http://www.streetfilms.org/queens-plaza-protected-cycletrack-is-open-for-business/

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Site of JFK Park before intervention, Long Island City, Queens photograph from UrbanOmnibus

Paving Tiles Michael Singer

Design elemnts for the urban canopy Image by Margie Ruddick

View from the square towards the light engeneered elevated rendering by Marpillero Pollak Architects

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JFK Park today Photograph by StudioBrooklyn 2011-2012

JFK Park today Photograph by Marpillero Pollak Architects

JFK Park today Photograph by StudioBrooklyn 2011-2012

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Red Hook Brooklyn

John McGill

Design Proposal

the culver viaduct

“

Underline is an opportunistic repurposing of existing, functioning infrastructure to address the need for a vibrant and coherent public realm.

John McGill, architect and lecturar in San Francisco, 2010

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“

the culver viaduct

CONTEXT The Culver Viaduct is a massive steel and concrete 90 feet high viaduct carrying the F and G trains over the Gowanus Canal. In 2009 the MTA planned for extensive maintenance 4 of the Culver Viaduct in the area of Red Hook, Brooklyn . In the context of the Gowanus Canal area many others see this site in a broader intervention concerning the structure, the transit gateway and the neighborhood. The research and design of the viaduct is part of a master thesis addressed by John McGill to explore the idea of infrastructure as opportunity where it can transcend its only purpose; mobility.

5

Since the Gowanus area is designated a federal Superfund in 2010 and shipping almost disappeared from the polluted canal the implementation of the viaduct structure can be reconsidered. Within this context a set of new conditions is offered and can be placed within the currently undergoing concrete structural deck replacement.

DESIGN The design approach starts from four types of preservation and four potential modes of intervention.

The preservation is facing the game of sunlight and shadows through the structure, the structural ability, the structure’s existing character and a limited footprint at ground level with extra attention to the array of unique spatial conditions since the curving line of the viaduct is not constrained to the urban grid. Interventions regards the creation of flexible space for public assembly, a concrete decking as a public landscape running through the structure hung from above on steel rods, pure infill at ground level and adaptive reuse of existing adjacent structures.

Within the existing structure it is impossible to assume that the additional loads of the concrete ribbon can be carried by the existing reinforced concrete trusses. For support, the ribbon is dictated by clearances found within and between the trusses at various heights above the streets and places where it can be fastened to the re-engineered deck above. The ribbon is allowed to move freely through and outboard the structure to create different viewpoints and spaces below, while seeking light and connecting different elements in the neighborhood additional to the Underline design.

The adaptive reuse includes different additional programs depending on specific locations and conditions of the area. Together these implementations create a series of distributed spaces connected by a linear public park establishing a sequence of different visual experiences together with the rhythmic discharge and departure of passengers to and from the existing stations. The program is arranged in discernible clusters to provide clearly legible points of access from the street. Possible programs are the additions of a climbing wall, public exhibition space, a cafĂŠ, covered outdoor basketball courts, small public fitness center, a lap pool and retail and production spaces.

To take into account the contemporary concerns about ecology, sustainability and storm water management hanging gardens are added to filter and retain storm water before it reaches the streets and to filter sunlight during summer.

VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeY6ANvlWOQ

4 5

mta.info, Culver Viaduct Rehabilitation Project http://www.mta.info/nyct/service/FG_CulverViaduct.htm#whatHappening EPA.gov, Superfund http://www.epa.gov/superfund/index.htm

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Culver Viaduct, Smith-9 Sts station, Red Hook, Brooklyn Image from Norlos.com/weblog

Underneath the viaduct, Nelson Street Photograph by John McGill

Design Proposal from above Image by John McGill

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Culver Viaduct, Smith and 9th Street Photograph by John McGill

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Design proposal for the pedestrain ribbon through and outboard the existing structure Rendering by John McGill

Basketball courts Rendering by John McGill

Climbing Wall Rendering by John McGill

Hanging Gardens for filtering storm water and sunlight Rendering by John McGill

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Conclusion

All projects discussed above are developed in the last ten years. This points out the very recent idea of providing public space and greenways together with the distant character of urban infrastructure. The idea has several potentials related to creating a new imago for the often neglected infrastructure despite their important role and image in New York City. Since the development of the High Line in Manhattan many comparable projects and design ideas followed in all imaginable conditions from abandonned railroad tracks to transportation infrastructure that is still in use today.

The idea of combining the big flows of the city with the very personal scale of the city’s residents fits in the idea of improving ,expanding and maintaining sustainable transportation infrastructure and its options as described in PlaNYC. The areas of the public realm, brownfield cleanup programs and transportation issues are very relevant topics for contemporary city planning in 6 New York City. Because most brownfields are located near elevated transit structures these vacant lots can take up the provision of green places with a strong local and personal feeling. In the same time these new locations are embedded in a wide connected network of greenways and transit.

It is clear that the public realm in the twentyfirst century is drawn by very new concepts of combining different concerns in city planning. Next to all the advantages of these new urban concepts one should also take into account different difficulties the projects are facing. One has to take care of the noise level of still running trains close to new public places or one should consider safety problems because of blurred boundaries between public and private spaces.

Paying attention to all aspects these places are facing and bringing them together in a clear, strategic plan new urban places will be created with very high concerns about the genius loci while at the same time the broader context of the neighborhood is implemented.

6

nyc.gov, PlaNYC, The Plan http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc2030/html/theplan/the-plan.shtml http://nytelecom.vo.llnwd.net/o15/agencies/planyc2030/pdf/planyc_2011_planyc_full_report.pdf

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LIST OF IMAGES img.01

BAAN, Iwan, High Line Park Photos, 2009,

http://www.thehighline.org/galleries/images/high-line-park-photos, last visited: 17/02/2012.

img.02

STERNFIELD, Joel, The High Line, Joel Sternfield, 2012,

http://www.thehighline.org/galleries/images/joel-sternfeld, last visited: 04/06/2012.

img.03

JAMES CORNER FIELD OPERATIONS, High Line, section1,

http://www.fieldoperations.net/, last visited: 16/02/2012.

img.04

JAMES CORNER FIELD OPERATIONS, High Line, section1,

http://www.fieldoperations.net/, last visited: 16/02/2012.

img.05

DILLER SCOFIDIO + RENFRO, High Line (Phase I),

http://www.dsrny.com/, last visited: 15/02/2012.

img.06

JAMES CORNER FIELD OPERATIONS, High Line, section1,

http://www.fieldoperations.net/, last visited: 16/02/2012.

img.07

JAMES CORNER FIELD OPERATIONS, High Line, section1,

http://www.fieldoperations.net/, last visited: 16/02/2012.

img.08

StudioBrooklyn 2011-2012 photographs, October 2011.

img.09

MPA, Queens Plaza: infrastructure reframed, 2009,

http://urbanomnibus.net/2009/06/queens-plaza-infrastructure-reframed/, last visited: 16/02/2012.

img.10

MICHAEL SINGER STUDIO, Queens Plaza: infrastructure reframed, 2009,

http://urbanomnibus.net/2009/06/queens-plaza-infrastructure-reframed/, last visited: 16/02/2012.

img.11

RUDDICK, Margie, Queens Plaza: infrastructure reframed, 2009,

http://urbanomnibus.net/2009/06/queens-plaza-infrastructure-reframed/, last visited: 16/02/2012.

img.12

MARPILLERO POLLAK ARCHITECT, Queens Plaza,

http://mparchitectsnyc.com/#/queensplaza, last visited: 20/02/2012.

img.13

StudioBrooklyn 2011-2012 photographs, October 2011.

img.14

MPSTUDIO, Queens Plaza Construction, 2011,

http://mpstudio.dphoto.com/#/album/1a253p/photo/6821633, last visited: 17/02/2012.

img.15

StudioBrooklyn 2011-2012 photographs, October 2011.

img.16

SCHWEN, Daniel, NYCSub FG Smith 9th pano, 2005,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NYCSub_FG_Smith_9th_pano.jpg, last visited: 20/02/2012.

img.17

MCGILL, John, Underline: The Culver Viaduct, 2010,

http://urbanomnibus.net/2010/10/underline-the-culver-viaduct/, last visited: 13/02/2012.

img.18

MCGILL, John, Underline: The Culver Viaduct, 2010,

http://urbanomnibus.net/2010/10/underline-the-culver-viaduct/, last visited: 13/02/2012.

img.19

MCGILL, John, Underline: The Culver Viaduct, 2010,

http://urbanomnibus.net/2010/10/underline-the-culver-viaduct/, last visited: 13/02/2012.

img.20

MCGILL, John, Underline: The Culver Viaduct, 2010,

http://urbanomnibus.net/2010/10/underline-the-culver-viaduct/, last visited: 13/02/2012.

img.21

MCGILL, John, Underline: The Culver Viaduct, 2010,

http://urbanomnibus.net/2010/10/underline-the-culver-viaduct/, last visited: 13/02/2012.

img.22

MCGILL, John, Underline: The Culver Viaduct, 2010,

http://urbanomnibus.net/2010/10/underline-the-culver-viaduct/, last visited: 13/02/2012.

img.23

MCGILL, John, Underline: The Culver Viaduct, 2010,

http://urbanomnibus.net/2010/10/underline-the-culver-viaduct/, last visited: 13/02/2012.

references BOOKS Aurora Fernández Per, Javier Arpa, The public chance, New urban landscapes, p 310 a+t architecture publishers, Spain 2008, 420p.

SHANNON, Kelly, SMETS, Marcel, The landscape of contemporary infrastructure, p 136 NAi Publishers, Rotterdam, 272p.

INTERNET DAVIDSON, Justin, Where the High Line Ends, 2012,

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/03/where-the-high-line-ends.html, last visited: 04/06/2012.

ECKERSON, Clarence Jr., Queens Plaza Protected Cycletrack is Open for Business, 2011,

http://www.streetfilms.org/queens-plaza-protected-cycletrack-is-open-for-business/, last visited:

22/02/2012.

GREGOR, Alison, As a Park Runs Above, Deals Stir Below, 2010,

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/realestate/commercial/11highline.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all,

last visited: 04/06/2012.

GREGOR, Alsion, Cool Area, Hot Rental, $1000 Depost, 2011,

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/realestate/the-high-line-posting-cool-area-hot-rental-1000-de

posit.html, last visited: 04/06/2012.

HYDC, Hudson Yards, 2012,

http://www.hydc.org/html/home/home.shtml, last visited: 04/06/2012.

MARPILLERO POLLAK ARCHITECT, Queens Plaza,

http://mparchitectsnyc.com/#/queensplaza, last visited: 20/02/2012.

MCGILL, John, Underline: The Culver Viaduct, 2010,

http://urbanomnibus.net/2010/10/underline-the-culver-viaduct/, last visited: 15/02/2012.

MTA INFO, NYC Subway Culver Viaduct Rehabilitation Project, 2010,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeY6ANvlWOQ, last visited: 22/02/2012.

SHEPARD, Cassim, Queens Plaza: Infrastructure Reframed, 2009,

http://urbanomnibus.net/2009/06/queens-plaza-infrastructure-reframed/, last visited: 13/02/2012.

THE HIGH LINE, The official Web site of the High Line and Friends of the High Line,

http://www.thehighline.org/, last visited: 13/02/2012 TIME MAGAZINE, New York’s New High Line Park, 2009,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W2Yq1zzxAc, last visited: 24/02/2012.

COOperative housing Pieter Van den Poel This casestudy first gives a general framework on cooperative housing and afterwards compares two different projects.

The first project is a historical example “hotel des artistes” from 1915 in New York. The second design is a contemporary example “miss sargfabrik” in Austria. Even though these projects are very diverse, there are several conclusions to draw.

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INTRO

Cooperative housing is now physical type. It varies from real small project from some apartments until co-op towns and go from pre-ware units until brand new buildings. It is rather a statutory construction that shapes a micro-community.

In a housing cooperative you don’t own a housing unit, you are a shareholder in a legal entity how owns real estate and is granted the right to occupy one housing unit which are recorded in there “occupancy agreement” or “ proprietary leas” which is essentially a lease. Because the most of its income comes from the rents paid by its residents, who are in variably shareholders, a coop is de facto non-profit. There is no point in creating a deliberate surplus except for operational requirements such as setting aside funds for replacement of assets. This makes it interesting for rich and poor. The poorer need not pay unnecessary rent to the landlord and the rich make sure that they can invest together in luxury. So they make sure that the value of their real estate operation less decreases in value.

The board leads the co-op. In small co-op’s all members sit on the board but in large co-op’s the board is elected. Normally the members of the board are volunteers but in large co-op’s they can work with some full-time members. The cooperation can have more in their possession then only residential units. Some of them have childcare, library, meeting room even a swimming pool.

The social aspect of this economic act cannot be underestimated. You involve everyone in the dialogue. People show more respect for the communal areas because they feel connected with it. In history co-op’s are also widely used in people who have a sort of affinity. So there are many coop’s built for artists and veterans of the Vietnam War. The social aspect is the great difference between the cooperation and the condominiums. For condominiums everyone owns his own apartment and do so to make shore that the value of there property less decreases in value. They cannot decide on major repairs on all units and they can not decide who comes living into the vacant apartment.

In New York there is a higher concentration of co-op programs to determine than in other parts of America. There are several reasons for this: - The strict and complicated rent control laws that have made many landlords want to get

out of the rental property market.

- Inspired by Abram Kazer, cooperatives appeared at least as far back as the 1920’s.

Condominiums ware not legal in NYC until 1964.

- Later in a building’s life after conversion, major new investments required to repair or

replace building systems can be raised by a new central mortgage in cooperative, while

in a condo funds could only be raised by onerous assessments being required of each

individual unit owner.

- A co-op building’s board can examine its own business description to impose restrictions

on shareholders, and reject prospective purchasers without explanation, as long as the

board does not violate federal and state housing or civil rights laws.

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hotel des artistes

West 67th street on central park was in 1903 a street of light industry when the first studio building was build. A syndicate of artists build their own co-op on the north side of the street at No 27. At the back were double-height studio spaces with the traditional artists northern light. At the front there ware smaller single-height rooms. By this building, the place became a magnet for artists. By the year 1915 there were four co-op’s built in the street and this became the place to be of the art scene in New York City.

At that moment the painter Penrhyn Stanlaws ,who lived already in the street, decided to set up a syndicate that would be built the biggest co-op in the street at address 1: Hotel des Artistes. The design is from George Mort Pollard, who already had designed two of the four other co-op’s in west 67th street. The gothic-stile H-plan building was 45 meters (150 feet) wide, with 72 apartments had 10 floor’s and cost $ 1,2 million.

It was build as a co-op but it also had rental units. Unlike the first co-op in the street Hotel des Artistes had also southern-light studios facing the street. Although many apartments were customized during construction, the typical floor had eight small studios at the front and four small and two double-size studios at the rear. Most of the apartments were small, and there were plenty of one-person households. But Aaron Naumburg, a fur dealer, had an expansive top-floor apartment that goes over three floors, filled with art and furnishings.

Besides the work-live studio’s there are other functions in the building such as: a swimming pool, a squash court, a sun room, a ballroom, a café (café des artistes), a first-floor grill and, on the second floor a match larger restaurant. The apartments did not have kitchens (they were added later); rather, the chef’s salary and other dining expanses were figured in the co-op budget.

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MISs Sargfabrik

The self-founding cooperative “verein füre integrative lebensgestaltung – Vienna” decided in 1998 to make a cooperative housing project cold the “Miss Sargfabrik” in Vienna. They engaged BKK-3 architects: Franz Summitsch and Johnny Winter to settle up a innovating participation project.

These architects (they were then called BKK-2) had already experience with a cooperative one bock away that had put a building Sfabrikg with residential apartments, a cultural centre, seminar rooms, a childcare and a pool.

This participation was first to initiate a discussion and planning process which involve future tenants, the existing cooperative and architects. They defining the approaches of the project.

This participation process last for one and a half year with weekly meetings. The idée was: “The discussion continues where the individual is bound to stop thinking.”

The building has to be eco friendly so the architects used wall heating systems with low temperature and the outer shell was fully insulated. They have also chosen for eco friendly materials like Rockwood, gypsum, woodfloor, absence of pvc and others. Another important point is big spaces with natural light with large windows. But the most important thing is how the building promotes the encounter between people. It is about supporting communication, a self determined society, a obliging neighbourhood. The architects describes is as: “Its about establish a new tribe in the city.”

In the building there is a wide variety of types. So you have units that are intended for short stays as temporary accommodation for guests, flats for young people who have left home, and students. The types on the ground floor are designed, as five “home offices” studio’s to combine living and working. Miss Sargfabrik houses also an apartment sharing community for parentless children’s and young people.

The apartments are not separated by a straight wall but by a crippling wall so that a “Ying-flat” and a “Yang-flat” was maid. In the section we see that the sloping floor makes spaces between 226 and 320 centimetres room height. The architects describes it as “a three-dimensional landscape transformed into a building.” This is something which a ordinary developer never would propose because it content a too big marketing risk.

The objective of the cooperative is: living – culture – integration. This objective is in the building by the mix of residential units and meeting places for people of all ages and cultures.

The common rooms are based on the second floor. There is a multifunctional media-library, a free-of-charge common kitchen with a dining area, a laundry room and also some teleworking stations. The laundry room is heavily frequented and become very important. So this room is visual and physical connected with the other common rooms. The individual functions benefit from each other and eventually create a synergetic effect. There is also a clubroom for teenagers for their unsupervised use in the cellar. The room is heavenly noise insulated and is used for music education.

Miss Sargfabrik has created some fulltime jobs to maintain there own property management.

There are about 12 employees for cleaning, technical, culture and event management and a restaurant.

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Sources: Internet: - - - -

www.wikipedia.com , last consulted 25/10/2011 www.BKK3.com , last consulted 25/10/2011 www.nytimes.com , last consulted 25/10/2011 www.urbaninform.net , last consulted 25/10/2011

Book’s: - Hilary French (2008), Key urban housing of the twentieth century, New York / London, W.W. Norton & Company. image references: PX,X,X. Hilary French (2008), Key urban housing of the twentieth century, New York / London, W.W. Norton & Company.

PX. http://iwalkedaudiotours.com PX,X,X,X,X.: Hertha Hurnaus, http://www.winter010.com/MISS.html

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conclusion

A co-op is a rather old type in very different guises. In current times it is less used because it is difficult to realize. There are many stakeholders in starting the project and they need to be adjusted to each other. First there must be a whole legal structure to be put in place. This structure will form the basis for the democratize in the coop and must be treated with care. The just founded company would likely have to loan to realize the project. In order to facilitate this process it is advisable to seek guidance from successful cooperative housing and non-profit organizations specializing in cooperative housing. Therefore real estate investors will not go through the difficult process and therefore choosing for condominiums. Only those who believe in the power that can be establish by the social aspect of the coop are willing to take the riskier and more difficult start. Studies show that coops provide other benefits, like greater social cohesion and support, reduced crime, increased civic engagement and sustainability, better quality and maintenance of housing, and resident stability.

This type of construction provides a more optimal use of open space and offers a variety of housing types. It is perhaps a type that can provide a solution to the current economic situation.

Cooperative housing save money by cutting out landlords’ profits, sharing common spaces, lowering operating cost, and receiving public subsidies for affordable housing. Because everyone is co-owner of the entire project there wile be more respect for common areas and shared outdoor spaces. They can also choose for distribute some duties to do voluntarily and so they can shift the significant maintenance costs. There may also be invested in some residential units or commercial spaces how are made for rent for people outside the community. These spaces then put money in the community so that other costs can be reduced.

Also in this type of living a long-term vision is required. The co-op needs to produce each year enough money to put away for the future to make large expenses such as basic restorations or a new constructions possible.

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Brooklyn Bridge Park: Public Park or housing development?

Arnout Van Soom With Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn has the opportunity to create a new great public park.

It can become the symbol of the borough’s renaissance. But the lack of tax money calls for another public-private partnership to fund and maintain the park. Five small housing development sites were proposed within the eleven sections of the parks. But are these developments as innocent as they seem?

Greenway Map (1996) NYC Department of C ity Planning

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introduction

Brooklyn and Manhattan have the least amount of parkland per hectare -water not included- of any other metropolitan area in de USA. In 1993, the Brooklyn Waterfront Trail was defined as a priority in the Department of City Planning’s (DCP) Greenway for New York City, which is a citywide 560 km network of greenways. The Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway will stretch from Sunset Park to Newtown Creek in Greenpoint. Within this 22,5 km Greenway is Brooklyn Bridge Park (BBP) amongst other large-scale redevelopments.

The greenway however is no stranger for New York City. Frederick Law Olmsted was the first to design a ‘parkway’ in the late 19th century pre-automotive era. He designed the Eastern and Ocean Parkways as boulevards to link Prospect Park with its surrounding communities and villages further away. In the 1930’s, Robert Moses expanded the park system, especially along the waterfront where kilometers of pedestrian and bicycle paths were built in new parks like Riverside Park and East River Park. He also built bicycle paths along many roadways such as the Shore Parkway in Brooklyn. In the 1980’s, the Neighborhood Open Space Coalition planned a 65 km Brooklyn-Queens Greenway for walkers and cyclists. It would connect Brooklyn’s Coney Island with Fort Totten in Queens, using Ocean and Eastern Parkway along twelve parks.

This has lead to the DCP’s Greenway for New York City plan in 1993 which proposed to expand public use of the waterfront with a series of interconnected parks in all five boroughs. The 560 km network of greenways (rather to be understood as a series of interconnected parks), with BBP as Brooklyn’s flagship in the project, is the city’s answer to a general demand for more green public spaces. But can BBP fulfill the expectation of becoming a world renowned Brooklyn park?

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history

Brooklyn’s post-industrial waterfront presents an unique opportunity for the whole of New York City. 35 hectares of new parkland will replace abandoned piers, parking, lots, and hangars and hopefully become a 2 km long world class public space along the waterfront for the Brooklynites. It is the first major park to be built in Brooklyn since Prospect Park 140 years ago.

The Fulton Ferry Landing pier at the foot of Old Fulton Street was the landing place of the first ferry between Brooklyn and Manhattan in 1642.

A village developed around the landing known as ‘Het Veer’ and was later incorporated into the town of Breuckelen. The area developed into a busy marketplace. The construction of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883 led to the demise of the ferries, which were the Fulton Ferry Landing’s livelihood. In 1900, the New York Dock Company consolidated almost all off the waterfront between Fulton Ferry Landing and Erie Basin in Red Hook. This site was a prosperous public waterfront through the first half of the 20th century. In the second half, shipping in the area began a steady decline in use due to container shipping and to competition from other harbor cities. In the late 1970’s piers 1-6 served as warehouses, but generated only modest levels of revenue for the Port Authority. They ceased cargo ship operations on piers 1-6 in 1983.

In 1984, the Port Authority wanted to sell the piers for commercial development. This lead to an investigation of the site’s potential as a public place. With the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway plan of 1993 in mind, the Downtown Brooklyn Waterfront Local Development Corporation was created in 1998 to undertake a public planning proces for Brooklyn Bridge Park. The result was the September 2000 Illustrative Master Plan by Ken Greenberg Associates, which presented a conceptual framework based on a successful community-based process. On May 2, 2002, Governor George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) dedicating state and city funding for the park’s construction and the creation of Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation (BBPDC), which was formerly known as the Downtown Brooklyn Waterfront Local Development Corporation. Their job was to oversee the design and construction of the park. A very important part of the MOU was that the park, once built, is required to be economically self sufficient.

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In 2004, BBPDC hired the landscape architecture office Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates to prepare a master plan for Brooklyn Bridge Park. In 2005, the Master Plan was released and the General Project Plan was approved (and modified in 2006 and 2010). The construction began in February 2008. The Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation was founded to continue planning and construction, maintain and operate the park.

Brooklyn Fulton Ferry (1766&1767) David Rumsey

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Con Ed Lot John Street Site Main Street

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Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park Empire Stores

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Tobacco Warehouse Brooklyn Br Brooklyn Bridge Plaza id

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Fulton Ferry Landing

Pier 1

Pier 1 Sites

Pier 2

Pier 3 Pier 4

One Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 5

Pier 6 Sites

Pier 6

Brooklyn Bridge Park Master Plan (2005) Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates

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Design

How do landscape architects like Michael Van Valkenburgh deal with the urbanization and the creation of contemporary public space in the postindustrial city? Today, this re-discovered landscape and existing public parks are seen as an ‘escape in the city’ instead of an ‘escape from the city’.

The original proposal by the New York Port Authority for a massive private housing development was rejected but it was soon clear that there was no tax money for a publicly funded park. The recent recession has pushed New York City into a new financial crisis and the Department of Parks and Recreation has seen its operating budget shrink. During the 1970’s financial crisis, the city has created the public-private partnership to fund and maintain public spaces in New York City. Many are still active today: 85% of the annual budget of Central Park comes from private donations, Bryant Park’s is also privately funded by events, concessions, and sponsorships, 70% of Highline Park’s operating budget is provided by Friends of the Highline, and Hudson River Park is funded with concessions, corporate sponsorships and parking fees.

The plan of Brooklyn Bridge Park contains eleven parks and five development sites for public-private partnerships. Because these developments are within the project’s footprint, they had to be minimum in size, compatible with the surrounding park and neighborhood uses, and most important generate sufficient revenue. The development locations were chosen in respect to maintain the protected view corridor from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and take advantage of the existing urban fabric by concentrating on the city side of the park to create vital urban junctions.

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program

-The Con Ed Lot is located along John Street north of the Manhattan Bridge.

A pedestrian bridge traverses a small cove, allowing people to experience the tide in a tidal pool. The John Street development site is a 930 m² area with a maximum allowed height of 52 m. The development will include hundred and thirty residential units, ground floor retail and up to one hundred and ten parking spaces.

-Main Street is a two hectares park in DUMBO with a nautically-themed playground, riverview lawn, boat launch and dog run. Surrounded by DUMBO’s trademark factory buildings and beneath the Manhattan Bridge.

-Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park is a 1,8 hectares park located between Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridge with the Empire Fulton Ferry Lawn and the restored Jane’s Carousel. The Civil-War era Empire Stores and Tobacco Warehouse border the park. The Tobacco Warehouse is used for public and private events. The Empire Stores project will contain retail and commercial uses in the existing 30.200 m² structure.

-Brooklyn Bridge Plaza is located underneath the span of Brooklyn Bridge.

It is flexible paved space that is used on a temporary basis for a number of civic activites like the Brooklyn Fea or Harbor Day. -The Fulton Ferry Landing pier is one of Brooklyn’s most historic sites. Since the refurbished pier was re-opened in 1997, it is one of the tourist most favorite spots, offering great views of the harbor, Brooklyn Bridge, and Lower Manhattan.

-With 4 hectares, Pier 1 is the largest park with two large lawns, a playground, a water promenade, a boat launch, and a meandering path. There is a hill in the middle to provide views of Downtown Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge. The Pier 1 development site is situated at the Old Fulton Street major entrance to the park. It includes two parcels, the larger in the north is 6000 m² with a maximum height of 30 m. The smaller parcel is 3200 m² with a maximum height of 14 m. The development will include an hotel, residential units, a restaurant, a meeting room/banquet hall space and up to three hundred parking spaces. Between the two parcels will come a pedestrian bridge to connect Brooklyn Bridge Park with the higher Squibb Park at the end of the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.

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-Pier 2 is 2 hectares and will feature active recreation courts for basketball, handball and bocce, as well as swings, picnic tables, and restrooms. A part of the original hangar is retained to provide shading, wind and rain shelter. A spiral pool with slope allows the visitors direct access to the water. It will also serve as a boat ramp for non-motorized boats to embark and land.

-Pier 3 will feature a big lawn, a playground and a fish cleaning station along a continuous waterfront esplanade.

-Pier 4, a remnant of a railroad float tranfer bridge, will become a marina. The pier is in a calm water zone (for non-motorized boating) and adjacent to the pier will be an accessible beach for launching various boats.

-Pier 5 will feature 3 outdoor recreation fields to play soccer, lacrosse, cricket, rugby, football, field hockey or softball, available day and night.

-Between Pier 5 and 6, we find One Brooklyn Bridge Park. Completed in 2008, this residential condominium building is a converted 93.000 m² former Jehovah’s Witness printing plant. It includes four hundred forty residential units, 7500 m² of ground floor retail, and over five hundred parking spaces.

-Pier 6, fronting Atlantic Avenue, has a huge playground, 1400 m² lawns, three sand volleyball courts, a outdoor food court, an network of lighted pathways, a ferry dock and a renovated building that contains restrooms. The Pier 6 development site, next to the park’s second major entrance, includes two parcels, each 930 m² for two new residential towers, together with up to four hundred thirty residential units. The development may also include ground floor retail and up to seventy two parking spaces. One of the parcels will have a maximum height of 95 m, the other will top out at 45 m.

The development program occupies approximately three hectares or less than 10 % of the total land area. Currently, the park is generating operation and maintenance funds from One Brooklyn Bridge Park. The other development sites will be developed in phases as construction of the park continues and more operation and maintenance funds are necessary. Today, Pier 1, Pier 6, Fulton Ferry Landing, Empire Fulton Ferry and Main Street are completed and open for the public.

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controversy

The Brooklyn waterfront has the potential to combine public recreation, mixed-use development, historic preservation, industry, and water-related activities and become a world-class public space serving as one of Brooklyn’s great public spaces and as Brooklyn’s face to the world. The concept of the park has radically changed from the September 2000 Illustrative Master Plan by Ken Greenberg Associates, which closely involved the communities and proposed BBP as a sprawling public greenspace that would be part of the city’s regular park system, to the 2005 Master Plan by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates. The agreement in the MOU in 2002 for BBP to be self sufficient and to be part of the city’s regular park system has changed the master plan dramatically. The resulting public-private partnership is the main issue.

The city would pay for the construction costs, estimated $150 million in 2002 but now up to $350 million. Mayor Bloomberg believed that only private housing and a hotel would cover the annual operating cost of $16 million dollar. The good thing is that the park doesn’t depend on government money so it doesn’t have to fear budget cuts. But city and state lawmakers, as well as some community groups, saw private housing as a risky way because it depends on an unpredictable housing market and searched for alternative sources of money without the development sector for this very expensive project.

As mentioned in the park’s program, the mayor originally wanted three new developments on the park grounds. The property taxes - actually payments in lieu of taxes - on the buildings would go completely to the park. The controversial fee wouldn’t fluctuate like regular property taxes.

However, tax money is supposed to go into the city’s general fund, to be decided on by representatives, since this type of deal creates disparities among neighborhoods because some people can’t pay for their parks in this way. This public-private partnership differs from the other examples. This private development is within the park’s footprint and their property tax goes integrally to the park.

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It may also result in the park being treated like a backyard of the luxury condos rather than a truly welcoming public space. It is not unimaginable that homeowners whose fees maintain the park will seek to exercize control over the open space. The towers could dominate and control the waterfront.

But is this park just a glorified front lawn? No, the piers will be packed with soccer fields, basketball courts, kayak launches, etc. Although parks do not usually work as major waterfront destinations, they can be used to connect more dynamic and interesting waterfront programs. So why not build cultural institutions, food establishments, art organizations, and other non-profits instead of housing (which is the most private program)? These destinations could generate revenue and serve the public especially as the purpose of generating revenue for the park is to maintain a public space. There is enough space for a diverse, entertaining, and enterprising development that would show Brooklyn’s assets and that goes deeper into the culture and desires of Brooklyn’s residents. Something Brooklyn.

Furthermore, the site of Brooklyn Bridge Park is not rezoned as a park because developing housing in a park is illegal. After being sued for the misuse of the word ‘park’ in 2007, the planners call it a ‘civic project’. Legal papers refer to it as a ‘civic and land-use project’. This maybe look unimportant but if revenues from the condos drop, or if the park maintenance budget rises, housing and commercial development could bite into more of the open space because the ground is not protected as park.

Atlantic Avenue view studies Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates

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reformation

Despite all the issues, there is still an opportunity to create a great public park. It is just very important for the succeeding of any great public space to involve the citizens to represent the cultural and ethnic makeup of Brooklyn.

BBP will probably be a world-renowned public space and a symbol of its borough’s renaissance but it is important that the Brooklynites have a mutual sense of pride and ownership in order to make it Brooklyn.

Community leaders argued that the 2005 Master Plan by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates was nothing more than a waterfront development with a nice open space. The Brooklynites really wanted to get involved in this top-bottom project so in 2008, they voted Senator Connor out and Senate candidate Squadron in. This resulted in the formation of a committee designated to find alternatives for the 20-story and 30-story residential towers at Pier 6, and for the other condo at John Street. Some ideas were to collect taxes from nearby landowners, or the creation of a ‘park improvement district’ that would charge the same nearby landowners an annual fee. Both proposals went nowhere. The wealthy Brooklyn Heights residents adjacent the park just didn’t want to pay. A proposal from the community leaders was to ask parking fees, event fees, recreational fees, restaurant fees,... but no one knows how much revenue it would generate. Same story with the plan for sponsorships in the form of advertising. The idea of charging a one-percent surcharge or institute a $25 annual Brooklyn Bridge Park maintenance fee to every homeowner in Brooklyn was set aside because raising taxes in a recession is not so popular. Someone thought of building a world-class Governors Island ferry terminal at Pier 6, with year-round concessions, venues, restaurants and bars, like a Brooklyn copy of the South Street Seaport in Manhattan. But that idea also went nowhere.

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It was until August 2011 before they all had agreed on a formula. This proposal involves the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society better known as the Jehovah’s Witnessess. While the society are moving many of its operations upstate in recent years, they still own hundreds of thousands of m² of manufacturing zoned properties at Brooklyn’s waterfront. The idea is to rezone the properties for residential use. They would become a lot more valuable, and when sold, generate much higher property tax revenue than the two Pier 6 buildings were expected to generate. The city calculated that for every m² of Watchtower property that is rezoned residentially and sold, the building space at Pier 6 would be reduced by 0.30 m². 140.000 m² of Watchtower space would have to be sold to make up for the development of the buildings at Pier 6. However, no representatives of the society were involved in any negotiations with the city but nevertheless the city has set a deadline on January 1, 2014 for the properties to change ownership. After that date, the city will release requests for proposals for the two buildings at Pier 6 because they rather want the condos than no park at all.

the proposal of a Park Improvement District

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conclusion

It is quite remarkable how much the citizens do care about the housing development on park grounds. After all, less than 10% of the entire site has to be developed to make the park financial self-sufficient and therefore also safe from the city’s budgetcuts. That issue is the embodiment of the real problem. With an estimated construction cost of $ 350 million and an annual operating cost of $16 million dollar the park is very expensive. Mayor Bloomberg believed that only private housing and a hotel would generate sufficient revenue.

Although the existing public-private partnerships from the 1970’s are in general considered successfull, the deal with BBP is different because the developments are on park grounds. The community also didn’t feel involved in Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates’ Master Plan. That’s why the public feels like the park is built for the developers’ residents and that they are just ‘allowed’ in the park. Sure, it probably will be a great park but if people don’t feel connected in the process, it’s just not their great park. They don’t want to lose this chance of creating a world-renowned Brooklyn park. After all, the purpose of generating revenue for the park is to maintain a public space.

People have therefore used their democratic power of the vote and a number of alternatives have been discussed in order to exclude housing development as the only revenue generator. They agreed on the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society proposal but it is quite strange that no representatives of the society were involved in negotiations while the city nevertheless has set a deadline on January 1, 2014 for the properties to change ownership. After that date, the city will release requests for proposals for the two buildings at Pier 6.

Perhaps this case study is best summarized in the trial involving the misuse of the word ‘park’. Housing in a park is illegal in order to protect this type of open space from development. And although Brooklyn Bridge Park will never be renamed to ‘Brooklyn Bridge Civic Project’, it anyway has lost some credibility of its planner’s intention for a Brooklyn Bridge Park.

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epilogue

Besides its importance due to its scale, BBP has also a symbolic meaning in the demand for real public space. The city has to rely on public-private partnerships to maintain the majority of its public parks. New open spaces for the public are in general malls and plaza’s, places that appear to be public but are privately owned. In a search for their own nearby small green public space, communities don’t have to address private developers.

There is 240 hectares of vacant public land in Brooklyn, while BBP is ‘only’ 35 hectares. These spaces are even concentrated in neighborhoods that need it most! Pocket park, parkette, mini-park, and vest-pocket parks are in general synonyms: a small park accessible to the general public. They are frequently created on vacant lots or on small, irregular pieces of land like those under infrastructures or leftovers due to irregularities in the street grid. Logically, these parks are the only option of creating new public spaces without large-scale investment. These potential community parks are just as important to the city identity as their more famous counterparts such as BBP. Organisations like Trust for Public Land help communities to convert empty lots into community parks.

And if there are no vacant lots around, people can always reclaim the public street. That was what Rebar thought in 2005 when they converted a single parking space into a temporary small public park in San Francisco. It was the start of an annual daylong global event where citizens temporily transform parking spaces into PARK(ing) spaces.

Although it’s temporary, PARK(ing) Day has effectively re-valued the parking space. Even the Department of Transportation (DOT) wants to transform underused street space into permanent public space. They want such places in every neighborhood, to serve as a neighborhood’s civic heart.

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references

-Brooklyn Bridge Park Site History. Internet, (22 October 2011) (http://www.brooklynbridgeparknyc.org/the-park/site-history) -News analysis: Inside the Brooklyn Bridge Park deal. Internet, (22 October 2011) (http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/34/32/dtg_bridgeparkdealmain_2011_08_12_ bk.html) -What is a Great Civic Space?. Internet, (22 October 2011) (http://www.pps.org/articles/benefits_public_spaces) -Foes decry Park ‘tax’ scheme, push for revenue from Witness buildings. Internet, (22 October 2011) (http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/34/8/dtg_bbphousing_2011_2_25_bk.html) -Project Development. Internet, (22 October 2011) (http://www.brooklynbridgeparknyc.org/progress/project-development) -Housing Deal Ensures Park in Brooklyn Will Expand. Internet, (22 October 2011) (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/nyregion/housing-deal-for-brooklyn-bridge-parkensures-parks-completion.html) -Reinventing Public Place in NYC: Brooklyn Bridge Park. Internet, (22 October 2011) (http://dirt.asla.org/2011/05/31/reinventing-public-place-in-nyc-brooklyn-bridge-park) -Hall Of Shame, Brooklyn Bridge Park. Internet, (22 October 2011) (http://www.pps.org/great_public_spaces/one?public_place_id=933) -The Suburbanization of NYC’s Waterfront. Internet, (22 October 2011) (http://www.streetsblog.org/2006/08/28/the-suburbanization-of-nycs-waterfront) -Brooklyn Greenway. Internet, (22 October 2011) (http://www.plannyc.org/taxonomy/term/687) -The Ups and Downs of NYC’s Privately Funded Public Spaces. Internet, (22 October 2011) (http://www.thirteen.org/metrofocus/news/2011/09/parks-and-re-creation-theups-and-downs-of-nycs-privately-funded-public-spaces) -Proposed Brooklyn Park Draws Class Lines, 2005. Internet, (22 October 2011) (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/19/arts/design/19park.html?ex=1153713600&en=6 15d4745cb2e894d&ei=5070) -Re-Imagining Brooklyn’s Inner Core. Internet, (22 October 2011) (http://www.pps.org/civic-centers/brooklyn_essay) -It’s still not a damn park!, 2008. Internet, (22 October 2011) (http://brooklynpaper.com/stories/30/2/30_02park_editorial.html) -Con-don’t!, 2008. Internet, (22 October 2011) (http://brooklynpaper.com/stories/31/33/31_33_sp_con-dont.html) -Editorial: At Brooklyn Bridge Park, the rich get richer, 2011. Internet, (22 October 2011) (http://brooklynpaper.com/stories/34/32/34_32_editorial.html) -Pocket Park, 2011. Internet, (23 October 2011) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_park) -An annual experiment in reclaiming metered parking spaces, 2010. Internet, (23 October 2011) (http://rebargroup.org/parking-day) -Park(ing), Valuable urban real estate, reprogrammed. 2010. Internet, (23 October 2011) (http://rebargroup.org/parking)

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BBP: public park or housing development? | Arnout Van Soom

-The Campaign For Brooklyn Bridge Park. Internet, (23 October 2011) (http://bkbridgepark.tumblr.com/) -Brooklyn Bridge Park Fact Sheet. Internet, (23 October 2011) (http://www.brooklynbridgepark.org/index.cfm) -Designers transform a defunct shipping complex and reconnect a city with its waterfront, 2011. Internet, (23 October 2011) (http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/portfolio/2011/01/brooklyn_bridge_park. asp) -The Design. Internet, (23 October 2011) (http://www.brooklynbridgeparknyc.org/the-park/design) -ASLA 2009 Professional Awards, 2009. Internet, (23 October 2011) (http://www.asla.org/2009awards/011.html) -Main Street at Brooklyn Bridge Park. Internet, (23 October 2011) (http://nymag.com/listings/attraction/brooklyn-bridge-park) -The Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway. Internet, (23 October 2011) (http://www.brooklyngreenway.org/s0main.htm) -596 Acres of Vacant Land in Brooklyn. Internet, (23 October 2011) (http://www.greeninbklyn.com/2930/596-acres-of-vacant-land-in-brooklyn) -Brooklyn Bridge Park. Internet, (21 October 2011) (http://www.brooklynbridgeparknyc.org/the-park) IMAGES IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE -Greenway Map (1996), NYC Department of City Planning. Internet, (24 October 2011) (www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/bike/gp.shtml) -Brooklyn Fulton Ferry (1766&1767). Internet, (16 February 2012) (http://www.davidrumsey.com) -Brooklyn Bridge Park Master Plan (2005) by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates.

Internet, (24 October 2011) (http:/www.brooklynbridgepark.org/go/the-park/the-park-plan) -Atlantic Avenue view studies by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates. Internet, (24 October 2011) (http:/pardonmeforasking.blogspot.com/2010/11/come-out-to-support-brooklynbridge.html) -The proposal of a Park Improvement District. Internet, (24 October 2011) (http:/www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/34/14/dtg_bbphousing_2011_4_8_bk.html

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Greenpoint-williamsburg waterfront redevelopment Miguel Van Steenbrugge Along Brooklyn’s waterfront, decades of decline and neglect have transformed former bustling industrial areas into urban wastelands. Confronted with these issues, the City of New York attempts to address the future potential of these areas by either safeguarding their industrial nature or by allowing new development to grow. The latter is the case for the Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront, where through the tool of rezoning the footprint of industrial uses has been drastically reduced. With the premise of connecting a mixed-use community with their waterfront, the City has drawn the blueprint for high-rise market rate developments.

Greenpoint Waterfront in 1879

Vacant Lots (grey) and Vacant Buildings (black) in GreenpointWilliamsburg area

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introduction

The Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfronts have always been dynamic zones of commerce and farming until the mid 19th Century. Due to population change and economical growth, manufacturing, industry and maritime activities found their way onto the East River shorelines and replaced nearly all farmlands by 1900. This gave rise to a thriving shipbuilding and manufacturing center in New York City and contributed in the identity of mixed-use communities along the waterfront that housed mostly working class groups1.

But as in other parts of the New York City area (for instance Red Hook2), waterfront communities have become a victim of changing economic patterns, global competition and displacement of activities. Small-scale uses such as light manufacturing, transportation, warehousing and utilities, which were thriving in Greenpoint-Williamsburg as well as other areas, experienced accelerated displacement since the 1990s because of gentrification phenomena3.

Between 1991 and 2002, manufacturing employment alone dropped by 72% in Williamsburg and by 60% in Greenpoint and the number of industrial jobs declined with almost 40%. Large manufacturing firms are no longer present in the area. The employment in manufacturing for New York City as a whole has fallen by nearly 80% in comparison with 19474. The overall result of these changes on the working-waterfront is a dominant presence of vacant lots and under used industrial resources.

To address these problems and other issues concerning the entire neighborhood, the Greenpoint-Williamsburg Waterfront and Land Use Plan was legislated and approved in May of 2005. It represented an extensive effort by the City to increase housing opportunities and revive the waterfronts as an economic asset inspired by the 1992 Comprehensive Waterfront Plan5. The Plan was guided by proposals in 197a Community Plans already adopted in January of 2002 and comprising of the following main themes: waterfront access, housing, local commercial development and rezoning. This was complemented by several objectives the Plan set out to accomplish in order to reflect changing conditions and prepare the communities for the future. It would provide in the City’s need for affordable housing and other developments, relying on vacant and under used land. It would build on the strong character of the existing neighborhood. It would protect zones of important industrial activity and employment. And finally, it would establish a blueprint for a publicly accessible waterfront6.

In order to accomplish the aforementioned goals, both the waterfront and inland area of Greenpoint-Williamsburg needed to be rezoned. This would allow for new developments in the future but also supports occurring trends in the neighborhood (e.g. illegally transforming vacant floors of industrial buildings into lofts). The rezoning was guided by several development principles that originate from community goals (as mentioned above) balanced by challenges of waterfront development.

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V AV NA

SUT

Waterfront Access Plan, May 2004

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MORG

The Existing Zoning in July, 2003 Purple stands for manufacturing and industry

The Proposed Zoning, March 2004 Yellow and orange stand for residential

Land Use Framework, June 2003

greenpoint-williamsburg waterfront redevelopment | Miguel Van Steenbrugge

transforming the waterfront: rezoning Before the Plan was adopted, the zoning of the Greenpoint-Williamsburg Waterfront reflected the historical land uses that once dominated the area. As seen on the map to the left, the entire waterfront was zoned for heavy industrial uses and manufacturing represented by the darkest purple. Adjoining this working waterfront was a zone of lighter industry that formed a buffer between the waterfront industry and a traditional residential core following Manhattan Avenue7. In general, (new) residential uses were prohibited in areas zoned for manufacturing but in the 1970s two areas were recognized for their mixed-use character: the Northside and Franklin Street Mixed-Use districts, seen on the map as letters N and FR. When we look at the new zoning map proposed by the Plan, especially the waterfront, we can see how the neighborhood is being transformed. Almost the entire three kilometer stretch of waterfront has been rezoned for high density residential uses, represented by R6 & R8 areas shown on the map to the left. Surrounding the Bushwick Inlet, we find a large new park of about 113.300m (the green area on the map). The waterfront to the North East at Newtown Creek has remained industrial as it is part of the larger Newtown Creek Industrial Business Zone or IBZ (it is also defined as a Significant Maritime and Industrial Area or SMIA) and is therefore “protected” against other uses8.

The rezoning map complies with a preceding Waterfront Access Plan that set out to create a large amount of new green public space (about 200.000 m2), a 2.5km continuous walkway on the shoreline and publicly accessible piers prior to development of the area9.

These interventions are in accordance with the goals and visions for New York City’s waterfront that result from extensive studies performed by the Mayor’s office, more specifically the 1992 Comprehensive Waterfront Plan and the more recent Vision202010. Because the majority of waterfront sites are privately owned, providing waterfront access could only be achieved by allowing development that also is financially feasible i.e. commercial or residential use. The New York City Zoning Resolution has a set of regulations called “Public Access Requirements” that forces public access on commercial or residential developments at waterfront parcels11. With these rules the Department of City Planning is able to allow for new uses on privately owned (vacant) waterfront lots (e.g. market rate housing) while at the same time connecting the waterfront with the adjacent communities. This results in waterfront parks that are privately paid for but publicly accessible. In a similar manner, the need for new affordable housing would as well be met. Through inclusionary housing requirements, developers are obliged to include a certain percentage of affordable housing units. This is a measure that couples market rate development with income restricted housing. On the other hand, developers are allowed to built higher and with bigger FAR12 values, to compensate for the loss in buildable area that is open space and for the loss in profits.

The possible consequence of these rezoning measures is a waterfront that over time will transform in a high density residential strip with green space surrounding it. Or as formulated by the DCP in their waterfront development principles: Locate taller buildings near the water’s edge and create a varied and compelling skyline13. The amount of space zoned for industrial uses has therefore been decreased drastically in favor of residential uses. Industry and manufacturing are being pushed out towards concentrated business areas such as Newtown Creek. To “honor” the mixed use character of the neighborhood (and the two disctricts created in the 70s) MX districts are expanded inland of Greenpoint-Williamsburg albeit with more commercial uses instead of the original light manufacturing. In this manner, commercialization of corridors is being promoted in accordance with a land use framework that was developed prior to the Plan (as seen in the image on the left, the orange zones)14.

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40 Story Max. (4.7 FAR) 30 Story Max. (4.7 FAR)

33 Story (3.7 FAR)

23 Story (3.7 FAR)

20-25% of floor area affordable

With Bonus: 4.7 (net) Inclusionary Housing Bonus on R6/R8 waterfront parcel

Illustrative Massing of the waterfront, May 2004

Inclusionary Housing Bonus on R6/R8 waterfront parcel

Impression of the waterfront with new zoning regulations

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a varied and compelling skyline?

Despite the extensive efforts that were made to revive a vacant and under used waterfront, I have several doubts about the rezoning measures and the (future) impact on the neighborhood of Greenpoint-Williamsburg. They can be illustrated using the renderings and impressions of the new zoning map produced by the DCP. These images demonstrate the “worst case” scenario when using the maximum height and bulk for waterfront parcels, taking into account FAR bonuses through the inclusionary housing program15.

Looking at the allowed density on the waterfront under the 2005 zoning regulations, we can see an early rendering of what the future shoreline of the area might look like. The large park area is clearly visible. The built volumes are being set back to allow for a continuous waterfront esplanade. All of the lots permit a fully built base with a tower on top, with specific set backs in relation to the building heights. These heights are in relation to different zoning districts (e.g.

R6 or R8 districts) on the waterfront in order to yield a varied skyline. Towards the community, there is a low-rise edge with no more than six stories to ensure development on a neighborhood scale16. This “scaling down” for the neighborhood is only required in R6 districts within a certain distance from the streets running parallel to the waterfront. Elsewhere, developers would be able to build more than twice the number of floors. Where there is a R8 district, the regulations allow even five times the number of floors17.

Although the different allowable heights are in relation to the distance to the waterfront, permitting higher buildings near the water, this “drastic” increase in densities and heights appears to be a development out of scale for the neighborhood of Greenpoint-Williamsburg. When we look at the aerial photo of the area, the fabric is of a consistent height and density and coherent with the morphology of the former working waterfront. Allowing for a development as depicted on the left, would probably be more likely to cut of the community from the waterfront, with the green esplanade and park lands acting as frontyards for the new high rise. This goes against one of the waterfront development principles that were identified by the DCP: Facilitate development that reconnects the neighborhood to the waterfront18. Moreover, the location of affordable housing on the waterfront lots undermines this even further. Developers, in search of highest profits, are more likely to provide affordable housing on the least profitable location i.e. away from the waterfront. And finally, the marketing of new developments appears to focus on new young upper-income families and advertises the neighborhood as a “New Manhattan”, a vision that in some cases differs significantly from the real character of the community19 (e.g. Northside Piers development).

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Northside Piers, 2009, Krzysztof Poluchowicz

Northside Piers and The Edge, Bing Maps, 2011

Northside Piers and The Edge, 2011

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CLOSING STATEMENT The rezoning of Greenpoint-Williamsburg has effectively accelerated the residential development in the area and especially on the formerly industrial waterfront. Vision 2020 reports of a transformation resulting in the building of 2700 new housing units since the rezoning of 2005 with another 2900 units in development20. It provides for mid-rise and high-rise developments on the waterfront which will give incredible views on Manhattan. Project marketing often uses this to promote certain developments. One could say that the zoning change and the impressions made are just a theoretical representation of what “could be”. But in fact, development has been in progress for quite a while. An exemplary project is Northside Piers, located near the Bushwick Inlet. It provides over 900 market rate housing units in three towers, benefitting from the FAR bonus through the inclusionary housing program. This results in approximately 113 affordable housing units on site and another 76 units off-site.

Upon completion, this project almost perfectly corresponds to the theoretical bulk and height allowed on this waterfront parcel. Or formulated differently: Thirty stories of shimmering glass that redefine the Williamsburg waterfront21. Another project called the Edge is located next to the Northside Piers development. It includes high-rise and mid-rise buildings and some retail spaces with a total of 892 luxurious residential units22. This development as well takes benefit from the total allowed bulk and height to provide the greatest number of market rate appartments and condominiums.

Michael Marella stated on The Architects Newspaper that Greenpoint-Williamsburg is a clear example of rezoning that gives residential development the waterfront and moves manufacturing to the interior opposed to integrating both with access to the water23. In a way, this is consistent with a trend of converting the shoreline from a working waterfront to high end real estate, that has been occurring for the last few decades24. Even before the rezoning of 2005, property owners saw the opportunity to increase income by getting rid of industrial firms in favor of higher rents, especially in mixed-use districts. A report by the Pratt Center in 2001 even stated that “the primary reason that manufacturing uses have declined in mixed-use districts is that an influx of non-manufacturing uses has caused property values to rise, prompting owners of manufacturing buildings to replace manufacturers with other uses that can generate higher revenues.” Since the approval of the first Comprehensive Waterfront Plan in 1992 and waterfront zoning in 1993, it appears that it is easier to rezone industrial waterfront for impressive high-rises in neighborhoods25. Although these developments are also a means of providing neighborhoods with much needed housing stock, more importantly affordable housing, these facilities aren’t always (partly) reserved for neighborhood residents26.

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footnotes 1. Greenpoint-Williamsburg Waterfront Open Space Masterplan, 2005, p5 2. Vision 2020, March 2011, p171: Between 2000 and 2008 the number of industrial firms in the Sunset Park SMIA dropped by almost 14% while non-industrial firms increased by nearly 40%. It has some of the largest vacant sites of all SMIAs. 3. Community Development Studio, Rutgers University, Spring 2007, p16 4. 2002 New York State Department of Labor data analysed by the Department of City Planning, http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/greenpointwill/ greenplan3.shtml, Accessed October 26 2011 5. Community Development Studio, Rutgers University, Spring 2007, p4 6. Planning Framework Background, http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/greenpointwill/greenplan1.shtml, Accessed October 26, 2011 7. Planning Framework Overview, http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/greenpointwill/greenplan2.shtml, Accessed October 26, 2011 8. The 2005 New York City Industrial Policy outlined the IBZs; they result from the SMIAs defined in the 1992 Comprehensive Waterfront Plan 9. The Greenpoint-Williamsburg Waterfront Access Plan, http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/greenpointwill/greenwateraccess2.shtml, Accessed October 26, 2011 10. Vision2020 was presented in May 2011 11. Waterfront Zoning Requirements, http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/greenpointwill/greenwateraccessplan.shtml, Accessed February 4, 2012 12. FAR stands for “floor area ratio” 13. Waterfront Development Principles, http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/greenpointwill/greenwaterdevelop1.shtml, Accessed February 4, 2012 14. Community Development Studio, Rutgers University, Spring 2007, p4 15. Greenpoint-Williamsburg Inclusionary Housing Program, http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/greenpointwill/incl_housing_web.pdf, Accessed February 4, 2012 16. Waterfront Development, http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/greenpointwill/greenwaterdevelop3.shtml, Accessed February 4, 2012 17. Height Limits, http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/greenpointwill/greenwaterdevelop2.shtml, Accessed February 4, 2012 18. Waterfront Development Principles, http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/greenpointwill/greenwaterdevelop1.shtml, Accessed February 4, 2012 19. Community Development Studio, Rutgers University, Spring 2007, p9 20. Vision 2020, March 2011, Greenpoint-Williamsburg Transformation, p13 21. New York’s New Perspective, http://www.northsidepiers.com/index.shtml, Accessed February 4, 2012 22. Community Development Studio, Rutgers University, Spring 2007, p9 23. On The Waterfront, The Architect’s Newspaper, September 26 2011, Accessed October 24, 2011: Michael Marella worked on Vision 2020 24. Tom Angotti, On The Waterfront plan: Real Estate Dreams and Future Conflicts, January 2011, Accessed October 24, 2011 25. Tom Angotti, On The Waterfront plan: Real Estate Dreams and Future Conflicts, January 2011, Accessed October 24, 2011 26. Community Development Studio, Rutgers University, Spring 2007, p9

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references

New York Harbor Background, Planning, Waterfront & Vision 2020

Vision 2020, March 2011 1992 Comprehensive Waterfront Plan http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/cwp/index.shtml; http://www.nyc.gov/html/waves/html/home/home.shtml; http://www.nyc.gov/html/waves/html/gallery/gallery.shtml; http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/rezonings/rezonings.shtml; http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/317.html; http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/wrp/wrp.shtml; http://www.panynj.gov/about/coastal-eco-systems.html; http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/landuse/20110124/12/3457 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/realestate/07cov.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=project%20waterfront&st=cse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Harbor; last modified on 14 October 2011 at 09:00; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_of_New_York_and_New_Jersey; 4 October 2011 at 14:08; http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/arts/design/14wate.html; http://www.preservationnation.org/travel-and-sites/sites/northeast-region/brooklyns-industrial-waterfront.html; http://www.archpaper.com/news/articles.asp?id=5650 http://saveindustrialbrooklyn.org/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/01/new-york-harbour-city-again http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/13/AR2011031303804.html Greenpoint-Williamsburg Greenpoint-Williamsburg Waterfront and Land Use Plan Greenpoint-Williamsburg Waterfront Access Plan http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/greenpointwill/greenoverview.shtml http://nymag.com/realestate/articles/neighborhoods/williamsburg.htm http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/greenpointwill/gw_fuca_sum.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/greenpointwill/waterfront_access_plan_map.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/greenpointwill/landuse_0903.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/greenpointwill/existing_zoning.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/greenpointwill/propzone.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/greenpointwill/wap.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/greenpointwill/framework.pdf http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/greenpoint_williamsburg_waterfront/greenpoint-williamsburg.html http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/greenpoint_williamsburg_waterfront/images/greenpoint_williamsburg_waterfront_masterplan.pdf http://policy.rutgers.edu/academics/projects/studios/Williamsburg07r.pdf http://northbrooklyn.org/econdev.php http://www.cb1brooklyn.org/PDF/CB1-RTF%20ULURP%20POSITION%20STATEMENT%20AND%20RECOMMENDATIONS.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/greenpointwill/greenplan3.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/greenpointwill/greenwaterdevelop1.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/greenpointwill/greenwaterdevelop2.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/greenpointwill/greenwaterdevelop3.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/greenpointwill/gw_feis_ch_03.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/wrp/newtowncreek.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/pub/wf.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/pub/cwp.pdf http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303823104576391681273001042.html?mod=wsj_share_twitter http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/reports/austinnichols.pdf http://www.gothamgazette.com/unpreserved/6.shtml http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/waterfront/20060511/18/1848 http://gothamist.com/2006/05/03/greenpoint_term.php http://www.northsidepiers.com/index.shtml http://www.williamsburgedge.com/ http://www.panoramio.com/photo/52851141 Access times are added to footnotes

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PARKWAYS: City-Shaping devices Sofie Verjans Over the last one and a half century, numerous parkways have been built in New York City. The definition and design of these big infrastructures have changed over time from green pleasure drives for carriages to the main traffic arteries they are today.

Figure 0: Location of the discussed parkways in New York City.

Figure 1: The transformation of Paris by Haussmann: new boulevards were constructed throughout the whole city.

Figure 2: Boulevard RichardLenoir, 1861-63: an example of Haussmann’s treelined boulevards that transformed the look of the city completely.

Figure 3: Conceptual scheme of the parkway system by Olmsted & Vaux, 1867.

Figure 4: Ocean and Eastern Parkway as constructed.

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Over the last one and a half century, numerous parkways have been built in Brooklyn. The definition and design of these big infrastructures have changed over time from green pleasure drives for carriages to the main traffic arteries they are today.

In this case study, Haussmann’s boulevards in Paris are briefly discussed, because they served as an example for many of the parkways that were built later. The definition of a parkway differs in time, as will be shown by the examples in this case study (Figure 0): the first parkways designed by Olmsted and Vaux (Eastern parkway is shown in light blue, and Ocean Parkway in dark blue on the figure below), the first “modern” parkway: Bronx River Parkway (shown in red), and the parkways envisioned by Robert Moses (Henry Hudson Parkway shown in orange).

The transformation of Paris: 1853-1869.

To adapt Paris to the 19th century’s changing conditions, Georges-Eugène Baron Haussmann transformed the city by creating large boulevards (Figure 1). These boulevards were straight lines to and from the railway stations and to the centers of commerce and pleasure. They were primarily meant to prevent delays, congestion, and accidents. Haussmann deconstructed infected alleyways and centers of epidemics to improve the health of the town and he increased circulation of light and air with the large boulevards.1 To make the streets more pleasing to the eye, Haussmann made all facades similar and lined the boulevards with rows of trees.

The new boulevards dominated the scene of the city and residential problems were put into the background. The uniform facades of the boulevards hid the disorder behind them (Figure 2). Haussmann concentrated on traffic problems and transportation, long before cars were introduced, and in doing so, his design was beyond the actual needs of his time. By incorporating the suburbs in the city, he created a great potential for the growth of the city.

The first parkways - Eastern Parkway and Ocean Parkway.

In the late 1860s, Brooklyn was the third largest city in the United States, inhabiting nearly 300.000 people. When landscape designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux proposed their design for Prospect Park in 1866, they included a metropolitan-wide parkway system to structure the development of Brooklyn 2 (Figure 3).

The Brooklyn Park Commission’s president James S. T. Stranahan was immediately captured with their idea of linking parks and other public open spaces together throughout the city and even beyond. The parkways connecting these parks were conceived as green pleasure drives, resembling the grand boulevards of Paris.

Around the parkways, radiating out from Prospect Park, single-family houses would be built to create suburban neighborhoods. The inhabitants of these suburbs were to travel to all parks in the city on routes having a park-like character. This park-like character would have a positive influence on pedestrians walking on the parkways, but also on family and community life in the surrounding neighborhoods. 3 Stranahan quickly began implementing the plan by building two parkways: Eastern Parkway and The aims of Eugène Haussmann as described in: S. GIEDION, Space, Time and Architecture; the growth of a new tradition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 5th edition, 1978 (1st edition 1941) p745-746.

1

² MACDONALD, Elizabeth, “Suburban visions to urban reality: The evolution of Olmsted and Vaux’s Brooklyn Parkway Neighborhoods”, in: Journal of Planning History, 2005, nr.4, pp. 295-321.

MACDONALD, Elizabeth, “Suburban visions to urban reality: The evolution of Olmsted and Vaux’s Brooklyn Parkway Neighborhoods”, in: Journal of Planning History, 2005, nr.4, pp. 295-321.

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Ocean Parkway (Figure 4). The parkways, consisting out of three roadways, were the widest streets in the city. A wide roadway in the center, flanked by two wide malls, separated the middle roadway from two narrow roadways, carrying one lane of local traffic and two lanes of parking. Along the parkways, six rows of trees formed borders along the sidewalks and the “malls” (Figure 5).

Both Parkways were built between 1870 and 1876, with investments of adjacent landowners (many of them were real-estate speculators). Even though Eastern Parkway and Ocean Parkway were the only parkways of the parkway system to ever get built, they are important for the planning history of Brooklyn. Olmsted and Vaux created a vision for the city, long before city plans or zoning even existed, because the parkways were meant to influence the neighborhoods around them.

The Parkways are different from other streets or boulevards because of their status: they are under the jurisdiction of the Park Commission, which means that they are not only streets, but also parks.

Eastern Parkway and Ocean Parkway start at opposite ends of Prospect Park. Eastern Parkway starts at Grand Army Plaza, at the northern entrance to the park, and goes east towards the old Brownsville district. Ocean Parkway starts at the southwestern corner of the park and goes south to the beach of Coney Island.

The physical form of the parkways remained more or less intact, but the use of the roadways changed over time: they were originally designed for pleasure drive carriages (Figure 6), and are now major traffic roads trough the city.

Development along the parkways didn’t come immediately because of nuisance restrictions for adjacent buildings and a recession in the early 1870s. When the recession ended, development occurred in other places and the area remained largely vacant for many years. But with the construction of the subway, the parkways became almost fully built by the late 1920’s. Not with the single-family houses that were envisioned by Olmsted and Vaux, but mostly with apartment buildings and row houses, but also some institutions and commercial buildings. 3 Eastern and Ocean Parkways escaped big transformations during the ‘highway-period’ until the 1970’s, though they were considered to become limited-access highways. Both parkways were declared a historic landmark, respectively in 1978 and 1975, and shortly after they were reconstructed (repaved, providing new benches, planting new trees, replanting grass,...). 4 Olmsted and Vaux’s vision to create an interconnected parkway system didn’t get lost in time: Since 1987, the parkways have been incorporated in the Brooklyn-Queens Greenway, a network of bicycle and pedestrian pathways connecting parks and communities.

This network runs from Coney Island in the south of Brooklyn all the way to Fort Totten on the Long Island Sound in Queens (Figure 9). The Greenway holds all sorts of amenities, cultural experiences, and passes through 13 parks, two botanical gardens, the Brooklyn museum, the New York Hall of Science, and different ethnic and historic neighborhoods.5 MACDONALD, Elizabeth, “Suburban visions to urban reality: The evolution of Olmsted and Vaux’s Brooklyn Parkway Neighborhoods”, in: Journal of Planning History, 2005, nr.4, pp. 295-321.

3

MACDONALD, Elizabeth, Enduring complexity: A history of Brooklyn’s Parkways, 1999 http://www.uctc.net/research/diss046.pdf, last visited: 25/10/2011.

4

CITY OF NEW YORK PARKS AND RECREATION, Brooklyn-Queens Greenway Guide, 2007, http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_things_to_do/ facilities/images/Brooklyn_Queens_GreenwayGuide.pdf, last visited: 12/04/12.

5

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Figure 5: Sections through Ocean Parkway (top) and Eastern Parkway (bottom).

Figure 6: Pleasure carriages on Ocean Parkway, 1890.

Figure 7: Subway Entrance on Eastern Parkway median.

Figure 8: A view on the Eastern Parkway today.

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Figure 9: Brooklyn-Queens Greenway.

Figure 10: A bridge over Bronx River Parkway made out of native stone.

Figure 11: The Bronx River Parkway in 1922.

Figure 12: The Bronx River Parkway in 1928.

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The first “modern” parkway - Bronx River Parkway.

The Bronx River Commission built the Bronx River Parkway as a joint undertaking between New York City and Westchester County. The goal was to accommodate large amounts of traffic, but the natural surroundings of the Bronx River Parkway Reservation had to stay intact. All architectural elements, such as bridges or retaining walls, were to be designed in harmony with the landscape, and made out of native stone (Figure 10). 6 When construction began in 1917, new machines and techniques were used to minimize costs.

The Bronx River Parkway, completed in 1925, was the first modern, multi-lane parkway with limited access. But with expanding car-ownership, the parkway quickly became obsolete, because it had only four roadways and was just 12 meters wide (while Ocean Parkway and Eastern Parkway are 64 meters wide). In the early 1920’s, the parkway was extended south, into the Bronx.

Between 1935 and 1955, when Robert Moses became the New York City Park Commissioner, he widened the parkway to six roadways, extended it, and made some improvements. In the early 1990’s, the views of the parkway had diminished due to exhaust pollution, graffiti,... etc. A public concern initiated a rehabilitation effort in 1992, that is still ongoing. The Bronx River Parkway now runs from the Sprain Brook Parkway in Westchester County all the way down to the Sound View Park in the Bronx, near the East River.

This parkway is called the first “modern” parkway, because it was the first parkway to separate functions from each other. This parkway is all about through traffic movement; all other elements of normal street form are separated.

Unlike the Eastern and Ocean Parkways, the Bronx River Parkway is maintained by the New York State Department of Transportation.

Robert Moses’ system of parkways - the Henry Hudson Parkway.

On the Metropolitan Conference in 1930, a system of parkways was recommended to solve the city’s traffic problems. This planning report included much of the park and parkway constructions in the 1930’s, including the Belt Parkway, the Grand Central Parkway, the Cross Island Parkway and the Henry Hudson Parkway. 7 Already in 1927, Robert Moses had a plan called “The West Side Improvement”. It included the design and construction for the Henry Hudson Parkway, running from West 72nd Street to the border of the Bronx and Westchester (Figure 13). Construction began in 1933 and in 1937, the Parkway was completed. It had center median with three roadways of 3.65 meters wide on each side.

Moses also converted the Riverside Park, designed by F. L. Olmsted, from an unsafe area to a complete park with playgrounds, trees, sport fields,... etc (Figure 14). to create a nice landscape surrounding the Henry Hudson Parkway. The visitors of the Riverside Park had little access to the Hudson’s waterfront, but the people using the parkway had a direct view at the Hudson.

6

http://www.nycroads.com/roads/bronx-river/, last visited: 21/10/2011.

History of the NYC Park Commission, http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_about/parks_history/historic_tour/history_new_ metropolis.html, last visited: 23/10/2011.

7

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The in 1910 proposed Henry Hudson Bridge was Moses’ next construction. The bridge, that opened in 1936, existed at first out of four roadways, but one year later a second deck of four roadways was added due to the huge success of the bridge.

For the part of the parkway that was supposed to go through the Bronx, Moses widened the existing Spuyten Duyvil Parkway, which had only two traffic lanes, lined with trees. In 1965, Moses proposed an upgrade of the Henry Hudson Parkway to increase the capacity, but the scheduled interventions were never constructed.

A section of the West Side Highway collapsed in 1974, due to excessive use and deferred maintenance. Because of structural deficiencies on the Henry Hudson Parkway, the parkway was reduced in capacity. The proposal to convert the parkway to an interstate highway was rejected and rehabilitation works began in 1977 to restore it, almost to its original form. During the reconstruction, the parkway was narrowed two lanes in each direction, and a new park was built: the Riverbank State Park. 8 The Henry Hudson Parkway is maintained by the New York City Department of Transportation, while the surroundings are under the maintenance of the New York City Parks Department.

Conclusions.

Changing definition of the term “parkway”.

Clearly, the definition of a parkway has changed since the Ocean and Eastern Parkways were built; from a parkway that connects parks with each other to a parkway that runs through a park.

While before 1900, the Eastern and Ocean Parkway were referred to as both Parkway and Boulevard, after 1900 a whole debate about terminology took place. The debates were about the functional or the aesthetic purposes being dominant. Later debates concerned the jurisdiction of the parkways.

In Olmsted and Vaux’ parkways, pedestrians, traffic and residential functions were all intermingled.

Later on, in the modern parkways, all of these functions became separated, harmonizing full freedom for pedestrians and traffic. Out of this separation came the fundamental law of parkways: 9 there must be unobstructed freedom of movement, a flow of traffic without interruption or interference. This was clearly not the case for the Eastern and Ocean Parkway, were streets intersect the parkway on every block.

The parkways may be compared with European highways, but they certainly are not the same: The parkways don’t provide the most direct and rapid transit. Instead they humanize the highway by carefully following and utilizing the terrain according to the topography of the earth and merging into the landscape.

Opposes the notion that the parkway is an isolated track, it was conceived as part of its surroundings, as a part of nature. Regulations govern all construction along its borders, limiting gas service stations, and prohibiting all residences, business houses, and factories.

8

http://www.nycroads.com/roads/henry-hudson/, last visited: 25/10/011.

S. GIEDION, Space, Time and Architecture; the growth of a new tradition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 5th edition, 1978 (1st edition 1941) p823.

9

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Figure 13: West Side Development, Henry Hudson Parkway.

Figure 14: The Fort Washington Park.

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How livable are the Eastern and Ocean parkways today?

Today, the Eastern and Ocean Parkway carry between 50 000 and 70 000 vehicles a day. 10 That is less than, but still very close to, the Bronx River Parkway (approximately 100 000 vehicles a dag in the South Bronx, 75 000 vehicles a day in the northern Bronx, and 60 000 vehicles through Westchester County)11 and the Henry Hudson Parkway (approximately 120 000 vehicles a day south of the George Washington Bridge, and 70 000 north of it). 12 Comparing Eastern and Ocean Parkway with normal residential streets (not parkways) for a number of environmental data (traffic speed, street noise level, and traffic volume) showed remarkable results: for many of these indicators, residents felt the medium-traffic residential streets to be worse than the multiple-roadway parkways. 13 Perhaps the distance between the residents and the high-speed traffic in the middle of the street creates a barrier and a sense of remoteness from traffic. The “malls” with double rows of trees also might add to that fact.

City-shaping devices?

Parkways completely circumscribe Manhattan: Henry Hudson Parkway, Northern State Parkway and the East River Drive, but they were not able to penetrate the city’s inflexible structure. Robert Moses, who had perhaps the same enthusiasm and energy for Parks and Parkways as Haussmann, said the parkway wasn’t an isolated traffic lane that didn’t depend on the organism of the city, but it simply had a different scale than the city with its rigid division into small blocks. It is the actual structure of the city that must be changed. 14 The parkway was the forerunner of the urban highway which, properly designed and located, can weld the automobile and lines of traffic into the actual organism of the city. They can pass through the city, as the early parkways passed through the landscape, flexible and informal. 14 Is the concept of a parkway still relevant today?

The parkways can be an inspiration for the quality perception of large infrastructures.

Though it might be almost impossible to create immense projects in the dense city of today (or the future), the parkways are still present in the city as important infrastructures. The “old” concept of the parkway has shown adaptability, and therefore is still relevant today.

11

http://www.nycroads.com/roads/bronx-river/, last visited: 21/10/2011.

12

http://www.nycroads.com/roads/henry-hudson/, last visited: 25/10/2011.

13

MACDONALD, Elizabeth; BOSSELMAN, Peter, “Boulevard Livability Study”, in: Places, 1997, p66-69.

S. GIEDION, Space, Time and Architecture; the growth of a new tradition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 5th edition, 1978 (1st edition 1941) p826.

14

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References.

MACDONALD, Elizabeth, Enduring complexity: A history of Brooklyn’s Parkways, 1999, http://www.uctc.net/research/diss046. pdf, last visited: 25/10/2011.

GIEDION, S., Space, Time and Architecture; the growth of a new tradition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 5th edition, 1978 (1st edition 1941).

SCHUYLER, D., The New Urban Landscape - The redefinition of city form in nineteenth-century America, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland, 1986.

MACDONALD, Elizabeth, “Suburban visions to urban reality: The evolution of Olmsted and Vaux’s Brooklyn Parkway Neighborhoods”, in: Journal of Planning History, 2005, nr.4, pp. 295-321.

MACDONALD, Elizabeth, BOSSELMAN, Peter, “Boulevard Livability Study”, in: Places, 1997, p66-69.

JACOBS, Allen B., MACDONALD, Elisabeth, ROFÉ, Yodan, The boulevard book: history, evolution, design of multiway

boulevards, MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 2002.

City of New York Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn-Queens Greenway guide, http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_things_to_do/ facilities/images/Brooklyn_Queens_GreenwayGuide.pdf, last visited: 20/10/2011.

Eastern Roads, 2010, http://www.nycroads.com/roads/bronx-river/, last visited: 21/10/2011.

Eastern Roads, 2010, http://www.nycroads.com/roads/henry-hudson/, last visited: 25/10/011.

History of the NYC Park Commission, http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_about/parks_history/historic _tour/history_new_ metropolis.html, last visited: 23/10/2011.

References - Images.

Figure 1 Scan from S. GIEDION, Space, Time and Architecture; the growth of a new tradition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 5th edition, 1978 (1st edition 1941) p746.

Figure 2 Scan from S. GIEDION, Space, Time and Architecture; the growth of a new tradition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 5th edition, 1978 (1st edition 1941) p752.

Figure 3 MACDONALD, Elizabeth, Enduring complexity: A history of Brooklyn’s Parkways, 1999, http://www.uctc.net/research/diss046. pdf, last visited: 25/10/2011.

Figure 4 MACDONALD, Elizabeth, Enduring complexity: A history of Brooklyn’s Parkways, 1999, http://www.uctc.net/research/diss046. pdf, last visited: 25/10/2011.

Figure 5 Scan from JACOBS, Allen B., MACDONALD, Elisabeth, ROFÉ, Yodan, The boulevard book: history, evolution, design of multi-

way boulevards, MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 2002, p47.

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Figure 6 Scan from JACOBS, Allen B., MACDONALD, Elisabeth, ROFÉ, Yodan, The boulevard book: history, evolution, design of multi-

way boulevards, MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 2002, p73.

Figure 7 Scan from JACOBS, Allen B., MACDONALD, Elisabeth, ROFÉ, Yodan, The boulevard book: history, evolution, design of multi-

way boulevards, MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 2002, p48.

Figure 8 Own photo, made on 05/10/11 at Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York.

Figure 9 City of New York Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn-Queens Greenway guide, http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_things_to_do/ facilities/images/Brooklyn_Queens _GreenwayGuide.pdf, last visited: 20/10/2011.

Figure 10 Unknown, Bronx River Parkway Reservation, http://www.woodhavenhistoric.com/index.php/bronx-river-parkway-reservation-white-plains-vicinity-ny-photo-119.html, last visited: 15/02/2012.

Figure 11 Unknown, Bronx River Parkway, 1922, http://www.nycroads.com/roads/bronx-river/, last visited: 15/02/2012.

Figure 12 Unknown, Bronx River Parkway, 1928, http://www.nycroads.com/roads/bronx-river/, last visited: 15/02/2012.

Figure 13 Scan from S. GIEDION, Space, Time and Architecture; the growth of a new tradition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 5th edition, 1978 (1st edition 1941) p830.

Figure 14 Unknown, Fort Washington Park, 02 may 2002, http://wirednewyork.com/parks/fort_washington_park/, last visited: 15/02/2012.

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contributors

Tom Thys Tom Thys is an engineer-architect and the owner of the practice Tom Thys Architecten, known for the design of various schools, primary schools. LAT Architecten is the partnership of Tom Thys together with Els Claessens and Tania Vandenbussche. He is a design assistant at the K.U.Leuven Department of Architecture, Urban Design and Regional Planning since 1997.

Ward Verbakel Ward Verbakel is an engineer- architect and urban designer. He co-founded PLUS office architects with Nathan Ooms in 2006, a practice specialized in various aspects ranging from landscape design, master planning to residential projects. He teaches urban design at the K.U.Leuven and at GSAPP Columbia. From 2006 to 2010 Ward Verbakel worked as adjunct professor for the post graduate urban design studio for the European Master of Urbanism on water productive landscapes, water urbanism and human settlements. As researcher, he worked with Studioopenstad in 2003 and the Urban Research Group at K.U.Leuven. He has lectured at many schools from Leuven to NYC to Bangladesh and is a regular guest design critic for architecture schools.

Manuel Avila Manuel Avila is an architect and urban designer. In 2011 Manuel was selected as Architect-inResidence at SUPERFRONT, a New York-based non-profit organization dedicated to architectural experimentation and creative interdisciplinary exchange. As Architect-in-Residence, he developed “Crown Heights Participatory Urbanism�, a community-informed design project, awarded first place by the institute for Urban Design at the By the City for the City competition. In 2008 he participated in Global Studio, a community based design program in Johannesburg, South Africa and was awarded with an honorable mention by the forum for Urban Design in NYC at the Red Hook Bicycle Competition.

Moji Baratloo Moji Baratloo is an architect and an associate professor of architecture at Columbia University Graduate School Architecture Planning and Preservation, leading the design studios in architecture and urban design. For her professional practice she has received numerous awards and recognition for projects ranging from private residences, parks and urban landscapes, site specific installations, exhibitions and furniture design. She is a recipient of several research grants and support by internationally recognized organizations such as National Endowment for the Arts, Australian Research Council and New York State Council on the Arts. She also founded the Urban Research Group in 2004 and helped establish the Store Front for Art and Architecture in 1981.

Matthias Blondia Matthias Blondia is currently a researcher at the Research Group Urbanity & Architecture (OSA) at the K.U.Leuven Department of Architecture, Urban Design and Regional Planning.

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contributors

Steven Delva Steven Delva is a landscape architect. He has his own practice DELVA Landscape Architects since 2009, and since 2008 a guest tutor at the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam. He is also a member of the think tank Het Vlaamse landschap roept om een sterk ontwerp since 2009 and the think tank about Landschap en erfgoed in de Westhoek since 2008, both located in Belgium.

Bruno Demeulder Bruno Demeulder is an engineer-architect and urban designer. He is the head of the Research Group Urbanity & Architecture (OSA) at the K.U.Leuven and also the program director of the POC Urbanism and Strategic Planning and the POC Human Settlements at the K.U.Leuven Department of Architecture, Urban Design and Regional Planning. He is also a professor of urban planning at the Technical University of Eindhoven, since 2001. He is one of the founders of WIT architects, since 1993. Bruno Demeulder is known for his work about the history of the Belgian colonial urbanism in Congo and his various publications about the public space.

Jeroen Deschrijver Jeroen De Schrijver is an architect and a LEED Accredited Professional. He co-founded D+DS architecture office in 2007 together with Ellen Depoorter in New York. One of their projects is URBAN PLANT, a model for a building that is fully sustainable. And it is with URBAN PLANT that they won the World Architecture Community Awards of the fourth cycle.

Aurelie De Smet Aurelie De Smet is a PhD student at the K.U.Leuven Department of Architecture, Urban Design and Regional Planning about the role of temporary use of voids in urban (re)development, guided

by Bruno Demeulder. She is also a research assistant at Sint-Lucas Architercture, Department of Architecture and Art.

Goedele Desmet Goedele Desmet is an engineer-architect and an assistant professor at the Department of Architecture, Urban Design and Regional Planning at the K.U.Leuven since 2006. She is also the president of the editing council of the magazine A+ Belgian Review of Architecture.

Henk De Smet Henk De Smet is an architect and a mentor at the K.U.Leuven in the Department of Architecture, Urban Design and Regional Planning since 1993. He started working together with Paul Vermeulen in 1989 and together they founded De Smet Vermeulen architecten. He was also involved in the workshops Hedendaagse Architectuur en Wederopbouw in de Westhoek in 2009.

Basisuitleg Map

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Francis de Wolf Francis de Wolf is an engineer-architect and urban planner. He gained experience in the urban field during several years in various studios and firms. He is responsible for the urban design projects inside the architecture office BRUT, founded in 2005.

Bart Eeckhout Bart Eeckhout is one of the founding members and original researchers of GUST and has been co-director of the team since 2002. He was a teacher at Ghent University in 1989 to 2005, Fordham University in Fall 2001, and the Catholic University of Brussels in 2002 to 2004. He is now an associate professor of English and American Literature as well as director of the interuniversity M.A. in American Studies at the University of Antwerp in the Fall since 2005. He is known for his urban planning books City Life, The Urban Condition and Post Ex Sub Dis.

Lars Fisher Lars Fischer is an architect. He is a founding member of the office Common Room and also operates an individual design practice. He is a teacher at the New York Institute of Technology. Lars Fischer previously worked in the Berlin office of Daniel Libeskind and in the New York offices of Marble Fairbanks and Leslie Gill.

An Fonteyne An Fonteyne is an architect. She is one of the three founding members of noAarchitecten, launched in 2000. They mostly specialize in designing public buildings, working out the urban analyse to the structural details.

Pieter-Jan Ginckels Pieter-Jan Ginckels is an artist. He is known for pushing the boundaries of all media-forms by often using a tangible form of communication. He has had many solo exhibitions and group exhibitions in numerous places ranging from Mu.ZEE Oostende to Klerkx in Milan. And in 2011 Pieter-Jan Ginckels won the Young Belgian Painters Award 2011, Centre for Fine Arts.

Janina Gosseye Janina Gosseye is one of the PhD researchers at the Department of Architecture, Urban Design and Regional Planning at the K.U.Leuven. She co-wrote the urban planning book Reclaiming (the urbanism of) Mumbai, together with Kelly Shannon in 2009.

Joseph Haberl Joseph Haberl is an architect. He has been working with Leeser Architecture since 2002. Leeser Architecture’s designs emerge from cultural, social, and technological patterns present at the site.

They won several design competitions and had several publications, with the latest being in The Wall Street Journal.

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contributors

Hilde Heynen Hilde Heynen is full professor of architecture theory at the Faculty of Engineering Science and head of the Department of Architecture, Urban Design and Regional Planning at the K.U.Leuven.

She is one of the senior academic staff on the Research Group Urbanity & Architecture (OSA) at the same department. She is also guest lecturer at the Architectural Association London. Together with André Loeckx, Lieven Decauter and Karina Van Herck Hilde Heynen wrote Dat is architectuur, a collection of key texts about architecture theory from the previous century, in 2001. And in 1999, she wrote the book Architecture and Modernity. A Critique. Hilde Heynen is a multiple published author in several magazines, like Archis, Assemblage, etc.

Yong Kim Yong K. Kim is an urban designer and project manager. He has been working at dlandstudio since 2007. Projects of his are the Gowanus Canal Sponge Park and the Downtown Brooklyn Streetscape. He designed, prior in his career, the winning entry for the masterplan of Giardini Di Porta Nuova competition in Milan, Italy.

Kaja Kuhl Kaja Kuhl is an architect and urban planner. She is the founder of youarethecity, a research and design practice in Brooklyn. Before founding youarethecity, she was an Urban Designer at the New York City Department of City Planning. Kaja Kuhl is an adjunct professor of architecture at the New York Institute of Technology and has taught and lectured in New York and internationally.

At Columbia University, Kaja teaches studios and seminars in Urban Design and Urban Planning

André Loeckx André Loeckx is Doctor engineer-architect. He is professor at the Department of Architecture, Urban Design and Regional Planning at the K.U.Leuven and responsible for all the Architecture Theory, Housing and Urban Development, Architectural Aspects of Planning and Cultural Antropology classes at this department. André Loeckx is a member of the editorial office of the Architectural Yearbook from Flanders and of the Task Force Urban Policy of the Ministry of the Flemish Community.

Jan Mannaerts Jan Mannaerts is an engineer-architect. He is one of the three founders of 360 Architecten bvba, since 2004. It is an office that works with different clients, ranging from public government but also private companies to individuals. They search for design assignments which need a researchoriented design approach.

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Justin Moore Justin G. Moore is an urban designer and city planner for the City of New York Department of City Planning. Where he is involved in the redevelopment of the city’s waterfront and high-density areas for a range of programs including affordable housing, cultural and commercial centers, mixed-use industrial areas, and parks and open space. He also works as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Architecture at Columbia University in the graduate Urban Design and Urban Planning programs. Justin Moore is a LEED Accredited Professional, an active member of the New York Urban League, the SUPEFRONT Advisory Board, and the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative’s Technical Advisory Committee. He is a recipient of the Department of City Planning’s Barney Rabinow Service Award and the Michael Weil Urban Design Award.

Christian Nolf Christian Nolf is a PhD researcher at the Research Group Urbanity & Architecture (OSA) and teaching assistant at the Department of Architecture, Urban Design and Regional Planning at the K.U.Leuven since 2008

Richard Plunz Richard Plunz is an architect, professor of architecture and director of the Urban Design Program at Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, since 1992. He has taught at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the Pennsylvania State University and has held visiting positions at the K.U.Leuven and the Politecnico di Torino. He has conducted long-term research on architecture and urbanism in Italy and Turkey as well as the United States. In 1991 Richard Plunz received the Andrew J. Thomas Award from the American Institute of Architects for his work in housing. Some of his books are Housing Form and Public Policy in the United States (1980), A History of Housing in New York City. Dwelling Type and Social Change in the American Metropolis (1990), and The Urban Lifeworld (2001).

Nina Rappaport Nina Rappaport is an architectural critic, curator, and educator. She is publications editor at Yale School of Architecture. Her current research and projects focus on the intersection of urban design and infrastructure, innovative engineering, and factory spaces. She recently published Support and Resist: Structural Engineers and Design Innovation in 2007 by Monacelli Press, Long island City, Connecting The Arts in 2006 by Design Trust For Public Space exploring Long Island City’s vibrant arts-and-industrial community and many others arts-and-industrial community. Her exhibitions include “The Swiss Section” at the Van Alen Institute, 2003, and “Saving Corporate Modernism,” Yale School of Architecture, 2001, among others. She is chair of Docomomo New York, a chapter of the international non-profit dedicated to the preservation of modern architecture.

230

contributors

Michael Ryckewaert Michael Ryckewaert is an engineer-architect and urban designer. He is a researcher in the Department of Architecture, Urbanism and Planning, K.U.Leuven, since 1998, where he also teaches design studio and seminars on housing. He is a researcher at the Research Group Urbanity & Architecture (OSA) since 2007, also at KULeuven. His research focused on housing, social exclusion, and the position of these phenomena in the urban landscape, in a number of short-term policy-oriented research projects. In December 2008, he won the three-yearly prize of Science and Technology of the Academic Foundation Leuven for his dissertation Working in the functional city. Planning the economic backbone of the Belgian welfare state 1945-1973.

Giovanni Santamaria Giovanni Santamaria is an architect and urban designer. He is an adjunct professor of architecture at the New York Institute of Technology. Prior to this, he was a contract professor and researcher at the Politecnico de Milano from 2004 until 2008.

Gert Somers Gert Somers is an engineer-architect. In 2007 together with Jonas Lindekens, he founded ONO Multiprofessionele Architecturenvennootschap bvba. He is a guest lecturer at the MSCA Interiors Building Cities at TU Delft since 2011. He was a teaching assistant at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel from 2006 to 2009 and had his own office Gert Somers Architectuur during the period of 20042007.

Angela Soong Angela Cen-Mai Soong is an architect, landscape architect, urban designer and adjunct assistant professor at Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. She co-founded a r c h i p e l a g o s with partner Manolo F. Ufer. Angela Soong was the recipient of several academic awards during her studies at Columbia GSAPP and UPENN. And with SCAPE, the project Rising Currents: Oyster-tecture is currently exhibited at the Museum of Modern Arts.

Iwan Strauven Iwan Strauven is an architect, urban planner and lecturer at the Department of Architecture La Cambre Horta at the UniversitĂŠ libre de Bruxelles since 2005. He is also the coordinator of BOZAR Architecture/A+ at the Centre for Fine Arts of Brussels (BOZAR) since 2006. And since 2011, Iwan Strauven is a member of the executive board of the magazine A+ Belgian Architectural Review.

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Maarten Van Acker Maarten Van Acker is an engineer-architect and urban planner. He is a lecturer since 2005 on the Urban Design Theory course, part of the Master’s program on Urbanism and Spatial Planning run by the Antwerp University Association at the Artesis Hogeschool Antwerpen. He has been a PhD researcher at the Research Group Urbanity & Architecture (OSA) , K.U.Leuven from 2007 until 2011. He also worked from 2004 until 2007 for the Planning Department of the City of Antwerp.

And he contributed as an author or (co-)editor to several books and publishes regularly in professional journals. In 2011 he was named a Francqui Foundation Fellow of the Belgian American Education Foundation, which enables him to conduct post-doctoral research at Parsons - The New School For Design in New York on urban (infra)structures.

Kiki Verbeeck Kiki Verbeeck is an architect. She co-founded the office URA with Yves Malysse and Joost Verstraete in 2002. URA consciously works on basis of spheres and programmation. It never starts a project on an aesthetic basis, but creates architectural puzzles out of a deep-going study. She was a teacher at Sint-Lucas Hogeschool in 2006.

Joke Vermeulen Joke Vermeulen is an architect and a design assistant at the Department of Architecture, Urbanism and Planning, K.U.Leuven,. Together with Francis Catteeuw, she founded the office Compagnie O in 2008. It is a multidisciplinary design studio for architecture, urbanism and landscape design.

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contributors

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