Urban Design
The Village Spirit
In New York, an old haunt is always closing. It’s a fixture of the news cycle, like the decaying subway system. Word gets out that a business is on the skids, regulars grapple with the loss, reporters note rising rents and everyone moves on.
Recently, a great little jazz club in Greenwich Village closed its doors.The Cornelia Street Café was a popular neighbourhood restaurant for more than 40 years, but I never ate there. Instead, I’d head down to the small, dark basement, which hosted two or three shows a night, and find a candlelit table near the stage.
Design Anthology, Summer 2019
A City to Grow Into
“It sounds utopian, I know,” says Daniel Haime, standing over the map of Serena del Mar, the city he is building on the Caribbean Sea. He plans to transform a 2,500-acre site outside Cartagena, Colombia – which his family bought in 1968 – into a lively metropolis. There will be a world-class hospital, low-income housing and state-run schools, a marina and bike trails, a luxury hotel and waterfront dining. One day, vaporetti on the lagoon could connect Serena del Mar to downtown Cartagena.
1843Magazine.com, March 2017
Brooklyn’s Industrial Revolution
Partly funded by New York’s economic development corporation, New Lab is a sleek example of how the city is encouraging technological innovation. In particular, New York hopes to spark inventions that improve the way the city works, creating jobs in the process. This year it committed $7.2m to build New Lab and Manhattan’s Grand Central Tech, which will provide support to startups using technology to solve problems like ageing infrastructure and inefficient transport systems. A similar venture, Urban Future Lab, opened in 2014.
New Lab is the only place in the city where inventors can design and produce samples in the same building. Technology has made manufacturing equipment smaller, so prototyping is now possible even where space is at a premium.
1843Magazine.com, December 2016
The New York that Never Got Built
In 1811, New York’s street commissioners mapped out a future metropolis. Although most residents lived downtown below Houston Street – then tellingly called North Street – they envisioned the city stretching another eight miles into upper Manhattan. Where there were marshes, boulders and hilltop farms, the surveyors drew avenues 100 foot wide, bisected by narrower streets.
The commissioners’ plan was the most farsighted in New York City history. By the end of the 19th century, once-rural roads were lined with brownstones or apartment blocks. It also acted like an architectural corset, squeezing buildings into right angles and 25-by-100-foot lots. For generations since, urban designers have struggled to wriggle free.
1843Magazine.com, November 2016
Cities Seen Sideways
The four new slides on Governors Island, facing the Statue of Liberty, have the best view of any playground in New York. But they’re not only for children. When they open on July 19th, adults will also race to the top to take in the panorama of the harbour and try the slides, which, at up to 17 metres high, are the longest in the city. A seven-minute ferry ride from Manhattan, the island already feels like a getaway, with hammocks and a mini-golf course. Add Slide Hill, and it’s a grown-up summer camp…
At first glance, slides seem to align perfectly with the mores of the millennial generation, with its extended adolescence and desire for Instagram-worthy experiences. But they are part of a larger urban-design story. In the last 20 years, there’s been a shift towards public spaces for prescribed activities – sports fields, performance areas, skate parks – and whimsical installations. Cities worldwide have become more playful.
1843Magazine.com, June 2016
Growing New York’s Underground Park
Beneath Delancey Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side lies a derelict tram station that’s been closed since 1948. With cobblestones, vaulted ceilings and snaking tracks, the century-old site is a favourite of graffiti artists. But when architect James Ramsey saw it in 2009, he envisioned a different use for the gritty canvas: spraying it with natural light and creating an underground park.
…In an area devoid of green space, it would be a public amenity, science experiment and urban adventure rolled into one.
1843Magazine.com, April 2016