T H E I N T E R N A T I O N A L R E V I E W O F L A N D S C A P E A R C H I T E C T U R E A N D U R B A N D E S I G N
Urba
n Sp
ace
612007
,!7ID7G6-hbhfjh!ISBN 978-3-7667-1759-7
Urban space: Public life in the city is constantly changing, which has effects on the city’s openspace. Consequently the demands made on urban space are manifold. Whether in historical con-texts or in new city districts, it must meet at least one: the provision of usable and aestheticallyattractive places, where urban residents have a sense of wellbeing. Topos presents successfulexamples from all over the world, among others from New York, Santiago de Chile and Beirut,from London, Shanghai and Kraków.
Urban SpaceJAN GEHL PUBLIC SPACES AND PUBLIC L IFE · KLAUS TÖPFER THE SUSTAINABILITY OF CIT IES · BEIRUT SAMIR KASSIR SQUARE · GENEVA PLACE
DES NATIONS · SANTIAGO DE CHILE P L A Z A D E L A C I U DA DA N Í A · SPLIT THE RIVA · LONDON BANKSIDE URBAN FOREST · KRAKÓW AND SIBIU
REGENERATION OF THE INNER CITY · NEW YORK CITY THE SEARCH FOR URBAN SPACE · MOROCCO, KENYA AND VIETNAM STRATEGIC URBAN
PROJECTS · SHANGHAI NEW PUBLIC SPACE · CRAIG POCOCK C A R B O N F O OT P R I N T · ANGKOR M E D I E VA L S P R AW L
61 20
07
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Robert Schäfer
Most of humanity lives in cities. Although
cities with enormous sprawl existed even in
the Middle Ages, as documented by this issue’s
article on the Cambodian city of Angkor, the
megacities of our time sometimes go beyond
the limits of the imaginable and the manage-
able. People crowd into cities in their search
for work; many of them have no other choice
if they want to survive. Climate change, food
supply and the lack of water call for intelligent
strategies, as we have attempted to show in
Topos 60.
Beyond such thoughts on the ecology and eco-
nomics of the city, which we can call ecovalue,
we should not forget to design the city itself so
that it can handle its responsibilities in the first
place. The tasks are manifold. While cities in
countries such as Germany are shrinking and
thus subject to transformation, cities from São
Paulo to Seoul are literally exploding. The
infrastructure and organisation of public life
are not always developing harmoniously and
effectively. Above all, all cities seem to be
swelling according to the old, actually super-
seded growth pattern. The buildings tower
upwards; the canyons between them are mostly
freed up for motorised traffic.
Probably the worst heritage of Modernism is
the city sacrificed to the automobile. It is a
model that has no future viability, not only
because of the rising cost of oil. People are not
born to be car drivers and yet they all patiently
let themselves get trapped and obey fate. But
now the time has come to reconsider because
imminent challenges will bring new mixed
uses, new management and different organisa-
tional forms of everyday life.
A noteworthy study from Great Britain may
provide food for thought in this regard.
Because many children are becoming obese
and inflexible due to lacking exercise (and
incorrect nutrition), urban spaces should be
designed in future so as to encourage exercise,
to make going through town on foot a plea-
sure, not only for window shopping but also
on the way to school or work. This simple pro-
posal nevertheless seems utopian to some. Yet
city life should not mean breathing bad air,
teetering on the narrowest of pedestrian paths,
trying to find one’s way by zigzagging between
motorways. The quality of urban space
includes many things, from a pleasant micro-
climate – to which plants, particularly trees,
make an essential contribution – through
spaces for public uses to places where people
can form community, which is after all what is
responsible for the functioning of a city dis-
trict, city or urban agglomeration worth living
in. Improvements can often be achieved even
with little means. Only there must first be an
intention to change.
U R B A N S P A C E E D I T O R I A L
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36 The Riva: Split’s water-
front adjacent to the Palace
of Diocletian, a World Heri-
tage Site, is one of the city’s
main public squares. At night,
the Riva becomes a bright
promenade.
Cover: Plaza Dalí, MadridDesign: Francisco José Mangado Beloqui (architect),Francesc Torres (artist)Photo: Miguel de Guzmán
23 Samir Kassir Square, Beirut: the design
of the square revolves around magnificent fig
trees and a pool. The pool separates the square
from the busy street.
Gera
ldin
e Br
unee
l
Sand
ro L
endl
er
46 Sibiu, Romania: Piata Mare, the Large Square, is one
of the newly renovated squares in the historic centre of the
Transylvanian city.
Scot
t Eas
tman
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5
97 New York’s Bryant Park: the Manhattan
landmark regained its former beauty and pop-
ular use after comprehensive restoration.
50 Bankside quarter, London: the re-use of
viaduct arches supports the regeneration strat-
egy of the southern banks of the Thames.
31 Place des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland:
coloured light underlines the different parts
and elements of the square.
JAN GEHL
16 Public Spaces for a Changing Public LifeUniversal elementary quality criteria for urban open spaces
MOHAMMAD AL-ASAD, FEDERICO ALVAREZ ARRIETA
23 Samir Kassir Square in BeirutUrban open space in the Lebanese capital
BRAULIO EDUARDO MORERA
27 Plaza de la Ciudadanía, Santiago de ChileA public square’s vocation for urban integration
ANNE VONÈCHE
31 The New Place des Nations, GenevaSwitzerland: a symbolic square in front of the UN building
MARTINA PETRINOVIC
36 The Riva of Split, CroatiaContemporary urban waterfront in a historical context
ANNA SKRZYNSKA
41 Urban Space in KrakówPoland: landscape design in a historical setting
IOANA TUDORA
46 New Urban Life for a World Heritage SiteThe restoration of squares in Sibiu, Romania
KEN WORPOLE
50 The Bankside Urban ForestPublic space strategy for London’s Bankside quarter
PETER STEGNER
56 Beyond the FamiliarThe search for urban space in New York City
ADAM REGN ARVIDSON
66 Landscape Architects to the StarsMinneapolis: collaboration between star architects and
local landscape architects
STEFANIE RUFF, NANNAN DONG
70 Dancing TrianglesNew public space in a residential area in Shanghai
BRUNO DE MEULDER, KELLY SHANNON
74 Contested Sites and Strategic Urban ProjectsMorocco, Kenya and Vietnam: urban design as a tool for
negotiation
KLAUS TÖPFER
81 The Sustainability of CitiesDesign of cities, urban agglomerations and megacities for
future viability
CRAIG POCOCK
86 The Carbon LandscapeCarbon footprint and landscape architecture
SCOTT HAWKEN
90 Angkor: Sprawling Forms of a Medieval MetropolisResearch in Cambodia help explain low-density cities
NADINE GERDTS
97 Landscape Architecture in the United StatesSeries: The state of the profession around the world
Currents6 News, Personalities, Competitions, Projects
104 Calendar, Reports, Reviews
110 Authors
111 Credits/Imprint
Alai
n Gr
anch
amp/
Tow
n of
Gen
eva
Olin
Par
tner
ship
With
erfo
rd W
atso
n M
ann
U R B A N S P A C E T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
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C U R R E N T S N E W S
N E W S
Nine projects were awarded
the Aga Khan Award for
Architecture in early Sep-
tember. One of the winning
projects was Samir Kassir
Square in Beirut by Vladimir
Djurovic landscape architects
of Lebanon (see page 23).
Two urban design projects
were also granted awards. The
motor for these rehabilitation
projects was not buildings
preservation but the creation
of new economic and social
structures that will restore the
city’s vitality. The Nicosia
Master Plan Project treats the
city as a unified entity, imple-
menting works in both parts
of town. New architecture
and conversion projects serve
as catalysts to revive the city
centre.
Further awards went to the
Central Market in
Koudougou, Burkina Faso; the
University of Technology
Petronas in Bandar Seri
Iskandar, Malaysia; the
Moulmein Rise Residential
Tower in Singapore; the Royal
Netherlands Embassy in Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia; a school in
Rudrapur in Dinajpur,
Bangladesh; and the restora-
tion of the Amiriya Complex
in Rada, Yemen.
The Aga Khan Award is grant-
ed every three years by the
Aga Khan, the Imam of the
Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims.
It distinguishes projects that
set new standards of excel-
lence in architecture, plan-
ning, historic preservation
and landscape design in soci-
eties where Muslims have sig-
nificant presence.
Award winners:
• Samir Kassir Square, Beirut,
Lebanon: Vladimir Djurovic (land-
scape architect), Solidere (client)
• Rehabilitation of the City of
Shibam,Yemen: GTZ Technical
Office and GOPHCY (architects),
Ministry of Culture, Yemen,
German Federal Ministry of
Economic Cooperation, Local
community, Shibam (clients)
• Central Market, Koudougou,
Burkina Faso: Swiss Agency for
Development and Cooperation
(SDC)/Laurent Séchaud (archi-
tects), Koudougou Municipality
(client)
• University of Technology Petronas,
Bandar Seri Iskandar, Malaysia:
Foster + Partners, UK, GDP
Architects Sdn Bhd, Malaysia
(architects), Institute of
Technology Petronas (client)
• Restoration of the Amiriya
Complex, Rada,Yemen: Selma Al-
Radi, Yahya Al-Nasiri (conserva-
tors), Government of Yemen,
General Organisation for
Antiquities, Museums and
Manuscripts (client)
• Moulmein Rise Residential Tower,
Singapore: WOHA Architects/Wong
Mun Summ, Richard Hassel
(architects), UOL Development
Pte Ltd, Singapore (client)
• Royal Netherlands Embassy, Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia: Dick van
Gameren, Bjarne Mastenbroek
(architects), Dutch Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, The Netherlands
(client)
• Rehabilitation of the Walled City,
Nicosia, Cyprus: Nicosia
Masterplan Team (architects),
Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot
Communities of Nicosia (client)
• School in Rudrapur, Dinajpur,
Bangladesh: Anna Heringer,
Austria, Eike Roswag, Germany
(architects); Dipshikha/METI non-
formal Education, Training and
Research Society for Village
Development (client)
Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2007
The LE:NOTRE Thematic Network Project in Landscape
Architecture, which had its fifth anniversary in October 2007,
can now celebrate this milestone with the success of a new
funding application. Like Topos, LE:NOTRE is going global.
Under the title of “LE:NOTRE Mundus” the European Union
has approved a grant of some 250,000 euros to extend the pro-
ject’s scope beyond the boundaries of the otherwise “eligible”
countries in Europe. Besides extending the geographic and cul-
tural reach of the Network, the new LE:NOTRE Mundus Project
will continue to involve all the existing 100 European university
members in the joint development of new international teach-
ing material on two important global topics to which landscape
architecture has a vital contribution to make: urban landscapes
in the context of the global phenomenon of growing cities and
the world’s threatened cultural landscapes.
The 23 new member universities are in Canada, the USA, China,
South Korea, Thailand, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia, Israel,
Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Australia and New
Zealand. The first meeting of the new extended LE:NOTRE
Network will take place in Brussels from 13 to 16 March 2008,
hosted by the Erasmus Hoogeschool.
After the European Union funding agency’s request to present
the project website (www.le-notre.org) to the Network
Coordinators of the other 38 Thematic Network Projects fund-
ed by the Erasmus Program, developing the website has by no
means come to a halt. Perhaps the most important initiative at
the moment is the development of a Europe-wide eLearning
platform. Although still at a very early stage, it points the way to
a future in which the true potential of international collaboration
making full use of electronic communication can be exploited.
Within the European context too, the Network plans to expand
by opening up access to the project, and in particular to the
website, to a wider range of stakeholders. These will include
landscape architecture students, landscape practices and munic-
ipal authorities and their landscape teams. If you wish to regis-
ter on the LE:NOTRE Project website and get a password, please
contact the Network Coordinator ([email protected])
or your nearest LE:NOTRE Network member university.
Last but not least, cooperation between LE:NOTRE and its part-
ner organisations is to be intensified. In addition to EFLA, IFLA
and ELASA, LE:NOTRE’s partner organisations include Topos as
the official “media partner”. Richard Stiles
LE:NOTRE project goes global
Aga
Khan
Trus
t for
Cul
ture
Hand-built in four months by the
architects Anna Heringer and Eike
Roswag, as well as craftsmen, pupils,
parents and teachers, the primary
school in Rudrapur uses traditional
construction methods and materials
but adapts them in new ways.
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N E W S C U R R E N T S
7
It was the second time that
the International Urban Land-
scape Award was granted by
Eurohypo AG in cooperation
with the two journals Topos
and Architektur& Wohnen, a
German residential design
magazine. The distinction
went to Parc Central de Nou
Barris in Barcelona, designed
by the architects Andreu
Arriola and Carme Fiol. Topos
reported on the winning and
nominated projects for the
IULA 2007 in Topos 60. The
certificates were presented at a
gala event in Frankfurt am
Main to representatives of the
City of Barcelona and the
architects on 5 October. The
prize money of 50,000 euros
will benefit the park.
International Urban Landscape Award IULA 2007
ECLAS, European Council of
Landscape Architecture Schools (ed).
JoLA, Journal of Landscape
Architecture. Autumn 2007. Callwey
Verlag, Munich 2007.
www.info-jola.de
The award ceremony for the 2007
International Urban Landscape
Award (IULA) took place in
Frankfurt/Main, Germany, on 5
October. The patron Prof. Dr. Klaus
Töpfer presented the award to the
first-prize winners Carme Fiol and
Andreu Arriola of Arriola&Fiol,
Barcelona, and to the representative
of the City of Barcelona.
The new issue of JoLA, Journal of Landscape Architecture edit-
ed by ECLAS features contributions from Asia, where urban
development is driving the need for a landscape approach to
urbanism. Kelly Shannon and Samitha Manawadu examine Sri
Lanka’s reservoir system while Singapore is the focus of Richard
Weller and Steven Velegrini’s paper. Marieluise C. Jonas writes
about informal flowerpot gardens in Japanese urban landscapes,
and Bianca Maria Rinaldi focuses on the Cheonggyecheon lin-
ear park in Seoul, which replaces a motorway.
With this issue, JoLA demonstrates the importance of intercul-
tural exchange and looking beyond borders. JoLA has already
secured itself a firm position among specialist professional pub-
lications and is top-notch as far as layout and presentation are
concerned. Anyone dealing with the subject of landscape in
teaching and research cannot afford not to subscribe to it even
now.
JoLA 4 published
Tors
ten
Silz/
Euro
hypo
“New landscapes – new lives – new challenges in landscape
planning, design and management” will be the theme of the
2008 ECLAS Conference, which the European Council of
Landscape Architecture Schools will hold at the Swedish
University of Agricultural Sciences in Alnarp between 11 and
14 September 2008.
Proposals for oral or poster presentations on the following top-
ics: design in new urban contexts, new regional and global per-
spectives, cultural heritage of future landscapes, planting design,
construction and management, communicative approaches and
stakeholder participation, and new approaches to teaching land-
scape architecture, may be submitted until 21 January 2008.
Please send abstracts (max. 500 words) by email to
For continuously updated information on the conference, see:
www.ltj.slu.se/eclas
ECLAS Conference 2008: Call for Abstracts
The City of Barcelona will use
it to help finance the conver-
sion of a former agricultural
building on the park grounds.
The plans call for it to be set
up as an environmental edu-
cation centre.
The patron Klaus Töpfer gave
a ceremonial address on the
subject of “Cities and Sustain-
ability”. The subsequent podi-
um discussion on megacities
demonstrated the imponder-
ables of urban development,
particularly with regard to cli-
mate change and the scarcity
of energy and resources.
An International Urban
Landscape Award IULA 2008
is planned. Themes and eligi-
bility will presumably be
announced in Topos 62.
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16
During the year 2005 a cross section of pub-
lic life in the City of Copenhagen was surveyed
and documented in the book New City Life. The
study documented the character and volume of
public life in various parts of the city – from
inner city squares and streets to outlying dis-
tricts and new towns. This survey was the fourth
link in a series of major public life surveys con-
ducted in Copenhagen over four decades (1968,
1986, 1995 and 2005). With these surveys it has
been possible to document how the character of
life in the public spaces has undergone dramat-
ic changes corresponding with changes in life-
styles and with the society situation in general.
Jan Gehl
Previous patterns where streets and squares
were primarily used for activities people had to
do, had by 2005 been gradually changed into
new patterns of activities where recreation, cul-
tural activities and enjoyment played a major
role. Also in this context it was documented how
the quality of the public spaces has gained in-
creasing importance.
In a society situation where public life is
dominated by necessary activities the quality of
the public spaces is not an all-important issue.
People will use the city spaces regardless of qual-
ity because they have to. This pattern can be seen
all over the world in countries with less devel-
Public life and urban spaces have undergone dramatic changes corresponding with changes
in lifestyles and society. Simple, but rather universal elementary quality criteria help to analyze,
evaluate and assess squares, streets and other urban spaces. Protection, comfort and enjoyment
are essential for open space design.
oped economies. In a society situation where use
of public space becomes more and more a mat-
ter of interest and choice, the quality of the
spaces becomes a crucial factor for the death or
life of modern cities.
Wanted: lively, safe and sustainable cities.After many years of one sided focus on traffic
and automobile issues, quite a few cities, such as
Copenhagen and Melbourne, have by now intro-
duced new planning principles placing priority
on inviting people to walk and bicycle as much
as possible in the cause of their daily patterns.
This reorientation towards the people in the
Public Spaces for a Changing Public Life
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1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
L ACTIVITIESTION)
NECESSARY ACTIVITIES
PUBLIC URBAN SPACESPEDESTRIAN STREETS TRAFFIC CALMING
CAR INVASION
ACTIVE
PASSIVE
WILL OCCUR ONLYIF HIGH QUALITY
IS PROVIDED
WILL OCCUR REGARD-LESS OF THE QUALITY
PROVIDED
OPTIONA(URBAN RECREA
17
cities places strong demands on the planning
and design of old and new districts alike. Care-
ful planning for walking and bicycling is a noble
cause in itself, but will evidently serve a much
wider agenda. In a time where lively, attractive,
safe and sustainable cities, with healthy individ-
ual lifestyles have become important political is-
sues, sending a strong invitation for walking and
bicycling to the citizens will be an obvious way
to meet such a policy. So obvious is this route
that it may be difficult to find anyone, citizen or
politician, who in the present day society, will
not want a lively, attractive, safe, sustainable and
healthy city.
The graphic illustration shows the dramatic changes in the character of city life during the 20th century:
essential work-related activities dominate around 1900.The streets are crowded with people, most of whom
have to use city space for their daily activities.The picture has changed appreciably by the year 2000.
Essential activities play only a limited role because the exchange of goods, news and transport has moved
indoors. In contrast, elective recreational activities have grown exponentially. Where the city once provided
a framework almost exclusively for work-related daily life, the city hums with leisure- and consumer-related
activities in 2000.
Recreational activities set high standards for the quality of city space, and can be roughly divided into two
categories: 1) passive staying activities such as stopping to watch city life from a step, a bench or a café, and
2) active, sporty activities like jogging and skating.
The timeline also shows when the car invasion hit Denmark in the mid-1950s.The pressure of car traffic and
functionalistic city planning in the 1960s triggered a counter-reaction to reclaim attractive city space and a
useable public realm. In the following 40 years this reaction was reinforced, and developed nationally and
internationally in an ongoing process.
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23
Mohammad al-Asad, Federico Alvarez Arrieta
B eirut is in the process of reinventing itself after decades of war and
devastation that have erased a significant part of its urban fabric.
The area of the Beirut Central District was once one of the live-
liest and most emblematic quarters of the city. In this sense, the Beirut
Central District has the potential of becoming a host for truly successful
public spaces where all sorts of people, regardless of religious or political
backgrounds can feel comfortable, making these spaces their own.
Like any other city, Beirut needs urban spaces that respond to all sorts
of people’s needs, be it for leisure, commercial, cultural, or political pur-
poses. Also, the need to recuperate some kind of symbolic space that roots
and represents the people of Beirut, their lifestyle and customs, is of the
utmost importance. There is a longing for the city that Beirut once was.
This does not mean that the Beirut Central District should try to recuper-
ate its old physiognomy, but it definitely should try to provide Beiruti rep-
resentative qualities.
Samir Kassir Square received this year’s Aga Khan
Award for Architecture. It is part of a series of urban
open spaces in the centre of the war-torn Lebanese
capital. Like any other city, Beirut needs urban
spaces that respond to all sorts of people’s needs.
SAMIR KASSIR SQUARE IN BEIRUT
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50
Ken Worpole
The regeneration of London’s Bankside quarter, most famous for the Tate Modern, is being accompanied
by a public space strategy with an ecological approach.The Bankside Urban Forest is a proposal for a
wholly new concept of urban green space networks and linkages.
Bankside is a densely populated and historic quarter on the southern bank
of the River Thames in London.The area is being regenerated, with about 50
projects currently under consideration. Several illustrative projects (dark
green) have been proposed to help bind the public space network together.
THE BANKSIDE URBAN FOREST
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51
T his proposal imagines the Bankside public realm strategy as an ur-
ban forest rather than a park. There is an important difference. The
term park originates with the Latin parricus or French parc, both
meaning enclosure. The early English deer-parks were royal hunting
grounds and strictly policed, for instance, whereas the forest has always
been regarded as a place of liberty and without distinct boundaries.
Over time,“forest space” has acquired a set of architectural and topo-
graphical associations with a sense of open-endedness and permeability, a
place that can be entered or exited at any point at its edges, and which
visually changes and re-configures itself as the traveller moves through it.
Because of their organic origins, forests offer a multiplicity of paths, routes,
changes of direction, as well as clearings, copses, streams, rides and allées.
“A person should be able to walk through a forest on the way from home
to work,” the architect Alvar Aalto once said. In his book, Forests: the Shad-
ow of civilization, the American literary critic, Robert Pogue Harrison, has
similarly made cultural claims for the forest as an abiding element in
human experience, even when transplanted into modern conditions: “If
forests appear in our religions as places of profanity, they also appear as
sacred. If they have typically been considered places of lawlessness, they
have also provided havens for those who took up the cause of justice and
fought the law’s corruption. If they evoke associations of danger and aban-
don in our minds, they also evoke scenes of enchantment. In other words,
in the religions, mythologies and literatures of the West, the forest appears
as a place where the logic of distinction goes astray.”
Thus, there were great strengths in respecting the existing labyrinthine
set of streets and settlements, which inspired the idea of the Bankside forest.
Local residents interviewed for this study have confirmed the importance to
them of the distinctive irregular street patterns of the area, together with the
many courtyards, railway arches, viaducts, bridges and alleyways.
Though the forest idea introduces elements now associated with “green-
ing the city”, and largely determined by ecological imperatives – to counter
CO2 emissions, to lower ambient temperatures, to increase surface water re-
tention and avoid flooding – there are equally important social and eco-
nomic imperatives in the forest strategy too. By adopting a more ecologi-
cal approach to urban space strategies, there are greater opportunities to
From top: the forest framework is formed by scattered historic places and
small open spaces. Ongoing projects begin to connect the public space net-
work. As the forest matures, significant spaces will be re-used and the inter-
twining of the forest’s network will create opportunities for the diverse users.
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Beyond the FamiliarThe Search for Urban Space in New York City
In 1970, the artist Robert Smithson conceived his “Floating Island to Travel
Around Manhattan Island”. In 2005, Minetta Brook, with the Whitney Museum
of American Art and Balmori Associates, realized the landscaped barge which
traveled up and down the Hudson and East Rivers in September that year.
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57
Peter Stegner
B y 2030, New York City’s population is expected to grow by almost
a million to a total of over nine million residents. This develop-
ment is considered both a success story as well as a major challen-
ge putting enormous pressure on the city’s outdated infrastructure and
existing open space system. Mayor Bloomberg’s NYCPLAN30, which was
introduced in 2006, is articulating a vision for a greener, more sustainable
metropolis. One goal declared in NYCPLAN30 is that every New Yorker
should have access to green open spaces within 10 minutes’ walking
distance from his or her residence. This goal requires new strategies and
visions for identifying, developing, financing, and maintaining potential
open spaces: an idea that seems to fall on fertile ground just as New
Yorkers have in the past tapped into new territory in searching for,
redefining and reclaiming of urban open space.
Urban space in all five boroughs of New York City – Manhattan, Brook-
lyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island – is under constant transforma-
tion by both highly visible and prominent projects undertaken by the city,
state and powerful developers, as well as lesser known initiatives and in-
terventions developed by dedicated citizens, community groups or non-
profit organizations running often on very tight budgets or with uncertain
outcome. Sometimes both groups of players join together and an idea or
desire expressed by highly motivated and engaged citizens evolves into a
multimillion, city and corporation sponsored development with huge eco-
nomic and physical impact on whole neighborhoods. This process is cur-
rently happening with the construction of the linear park on top of the pre-
served High Line in Chelsea.
In light of a rising demand for new open space in New York
City, a flurry of projects ranging in scale from the multi-
million dollar High Line to low-budget community centered
projects show the manifold opportunities being offered, or
waiting for discovery, within the dense urban fabric.
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