Underpass Park, 2007-14, in Toronto, Canada. Credit: Erica Fu
How do we address the issues our city has? By the People: Designing a Better America at the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, displays projects that strive to answer those issues through innovative projects. From an Underpass Park to human-powered vehicles, some of these projects can be adapted for use in New York City.
The Superblock Retrofit
The Superblock Retrofit, a project designed by Community Solutions, Terrapin Bright Green, WE Design, Atelier 10, and CookFox Architects, can be adapted for use in New York City. The Superblock Retrofit was designed in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Since gentrification and displacement are major problems in low-income neighborhoods, the Superblock Retrofit’s goal is to preserve and improve the low-income Tilden Houses without displacing residents. The low-cost proposals to improve the neighborhood can be a model for other low-income neighborhoods in New York City to follow. The Tilden Houses were originally built on four streets, but the streets were eventually combined and turned into a superblock. The superblock does not have any gardens, green infrastructure, and recreational amenities. Therefore, the Tilden Houses are not safe or community-friendly. Due to large amount of empty space in the superblock, the Tilden House residents do not have a sense of community. The revitalized plan wants to reintegrate the superblock into the street grid by creating lanes within the original four streets so the buildings would reconnect with the rest of the neighborhood while increasing safety by using the unused spaces to create walkways, gardens, playgrounds, and community public spaces. By improving the houses with this cost-effective design, the residents in the buildings would not only be living in a safer and friendlier environment, but would also not have to be forced to move to find other cheap housing.
The Underpass Park
The Underpass Park is a project created by PFS Studio, The Planning Partnership and Paul Raff Studio. The project was made in Toronto, Canada from 2007-2014 and can also be adaptable for local use in New York City. The project created a safe pedestrian walkway connecting two disconnected neighborhoods together by transforming a forgotten part of the city into a park. The underpass allowed plants to grow and with the overhead structure, it allowed all-year-round community activities. Overall, the underpass solved the issue of highways disconnecting neighborhoods by transforming an underpass into a public space that everyone can go and enjoy.
The Underpass Park is a project that can be adaptable in New York City. Using underpasses are a great way to find space to hold not only community and public events such as performances and art installations, but also to have another location for parks and plants. For example, in Grand Course, there are a lot of small underpasses where people walk under, but they are empty, dark, and dirty. At night, these underpasses are unsafe for people to walk through too. Therefore, beautifying the underpasses can achieve a greater sense of community in the connecting neighborhoods and improve safety so they are not empty and dark when people walk through at night. Underpasses are such an overlooked aspect in urban life and would be a low-cost way and to achieve the project’s goals in New York City.
Future Cycles
The proposed human-powered vehicle that works like a car and moped. Credit: Erica Fu
Future Cycles is a project designed by The Future People. The team built a human-powered vehicle that combines aspects of a bicycle and a car. The vehicle has the weather protection and carrying capacity of a car, but is human-powered so the driver would have to pedal the entire ride. The vehicle is also larger in length than the average car. Despite the project’s merits and proposed goals for an eco-friendly and cost-effective form of transportation, Future Cycles would not be adaptable for local use in New York City. The amount of traffic in the city and narrowness of the streets would make the vehicles very hard to function. The vehicles would be of great use in the suburbs or in places that are not as congested like the city.
