Photo:Lars Gemzøe, Gehl Architects
A cool outdoor exercise area and cycle paths in the Haraldsgade area of Copenhagen.
Posts tagged "city parks"
interesting NY Times article!
“Treasuring Urban Oases
By Michael Kimmelman
Alexander Garvin, natty in bowtie and jacket, watched commuters hustle through the gray, sunken concrete plaza at Citigroup Center on Lexington Avenue. Across 53rd Street, in the fading afternoon light, more New Yorkers ducked into a faceless subway kiosk on the triangular patch of wind-swept sidewalk — ostensibly a second public plaza — that occupies the southeast corner. This is the city’s public realm, or part of it.
What passes for public space in many crowded neighborhoods often means some token gesture by a developer, built in exchange for the right to erect a taller skyscraper. Mr. Garvin, an architect, urban planner and veteran of five city administrations, going back to the era of Mayor John V. Lindsay (1966-73), has spent the better part of the last half-century thinking about these spaces.
“The public realm is what we own and control,” he told me the other day when we met to look around Midtown. More than just common property, he added, “the streets, squares, parks, infrastructure and public buildings make up the fundamental element in any community — the framework around which everything else grows.”
Or should grow.
Writing in The New York Times last week, Christopher B. Leinberger, a professor of urban planning, took note of “a profound structural shift” in America during the last decade or so, “a reversal of what took place in the 1950s.” Back then drivable suburbs boomed while center cities decayed. Now more and more people want to settle in “a walkable urban downtown.” The most expensive housing in the country, and not just New York City, is in “high-density, pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods,” he said.
But what makes high-density neighborhoods pedestrian friendly?
Good public space, for starters.”
Via: The New York Times
Photo: Richard Perry
New York Times Reports: Presto, Instant Playground
Photo: Adam Nadel for The New York Times
Love this! New York Times reports on New Yorks new pop up playgrounds!
…During a two-month period last year, seven civic coalitions in New York neighborhoods like East Harlem and the South Bronx got permits from the city to close certain local streets to traffic for designated periods of time — say, between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on a summer weekday. Working with the police and other city agencies, they re-designated the areas as temporary “play streets,” encouraging neighborhood children to use them for exercise and offering a range of free games, athletic activities and coaching.
Call them pop-up playgrounds.
The experiment was successful. According to Karen Lee of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which helped oversee the project, data collected from the sites indicates that families visited local play streets for one to two and a half hours on average — time that many would have otherwise spent inside, according to a majority of the parents surveyed….
One of the challenges when combating obesity in low-income neighborhoods is that the urban environment can discourage children from being active. According to the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, which has long been concerned with the character of New York’s streets, high crime rates and heavy truck traffic often make such streets unsuitable for play. Local parks too often lack simple amenities like spray showers.
More generally, the habits born of living in these environments can create a vicious cycle in which children become more and more accustomed to staying inside and watching TV or playing video games. As Dr. Lee observes, “it will take joint efforts across different sectors” to address the environmental causes of obesity.
Unfortunately, such efforts face many hurdles. Mobilizing political will, changing public budgets, scheduling bureaucratic procurement, waiting out local design reviews, altering the behavioral habits of large numbers of people — all these things take considerable effort and time.
That’s where the pop-up playground comes in. Functioning as a kind of impromptu public laboratory, play streets can demonstrate just how effective such spaces can be, and provide an argument for making such outlets — or something like them — permanent. The flexibility of the spaces allows local organizers to test different streets, activities, schedules and promotions in different neighborhoods, to see what works best. At the same time, the novelty of the spaces can excite and attract local residents, reminding them of the options for public exercise, however in need of improvement, that are already at their disposal.
Excellent magazine from Cities on Farming in the City, a project currently being exhibited at Arcam in Amsterdam! You can get more info on the project in their introductory video here. I checked it out when I was there…well worth the visit! They have some great infographics and case studies!
The magazine features a cross section of community led, policy led and design led urban agriculture projects.
An interesting video giving an insight into the French perspective on public space from The City Factory/La Fabrique de la Cité and posted on the Project for Public Spaces here…interesting to hear the comments on shopping malls…that they are not really perceived as “public” space whereas theatres and other cultural spaces align more closely with peoples perception of “public”..
Reclaim your City - Park(ing) Day - Friday 17 September 2010
Urban Arterial Park(ing) Spot, sponsored by a bike and flower shop. Munich, 2009. Photo by ITDP-Europe. (Parkingday.org)
After High Line’s Success, Other Cities Look Up - NY Times 15 July 2010
The High Line’s success as an elevated park, its improbable evolution from old trestle into glittering urban amenity, has motivated a whole host of public officials and city planners to consider or revisit efforts to convert relics from their own industrial pasts into potential economic engines.
Building Brooklyn Bridge Park: An Interview with Matthew Urbanski
This spring saw the long-awaited opening of Pier 1, the first phase of Brooklyn Bridge Park, and the result of more than two decades of design, planning and community activism. The design team is led by the landscape architecture firm Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, which created the master plan in 2005. When completed the park will encompass 85 acres and six piers; Pier 1 occupies 9.5 acres
Byrant Park - Personalisable Space
I loved this furniture when I saw it, you can change the space to suit your needs - pull one chair away to sit in isolation - pull more together to sit in a group. Street furniture doesnt always need to be bolted to the ground!
See more at their website here and a piece from Project for Public Spaces here
Brilliant!
This past weekend, DoTank:Brooklyn lead a 48-hour street closure event and joint strategic community forums this weekend in Oyster Bay, Long Island. The whole idea was to partner with a community and show alternative methods to the formal planning processes of ‘talking and drawing’. Instead, we are showing a way to actually DO something temporary with the hopes that it catalyzes projects of medium-term and long-term permanent changes. In other words, how can 48 hours lead to 48 months and 48 years of change? The results exceeded our expectations.
This week we are digesting all of the photos, videos, and notes we have into a submission for the Build a Better Burb Contest. More news to follow!
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