On Monday night I got a taste of the upcoming Urban Design Week, organized by The Institute for Urban Design. The event was titled, “Dimensions of Urban Design: Pecha Kucha with City Officials” which allowed, “Each speaker [to] describe one of the projects of the moment that will shape tomorrow through 20 slides at 20 seconds a slide. A full 20% of the future New York City is not yet planned. So, what are our next big steps?“
I have uploaded some videos recorded during the event to my YouTube Channel for you to enjoy and me to remember.
First up are a couple of short clips the first are the Pecha Kucha NYC curators introducing the Pecha Kucha concept and the second is Anne Guiney, Executive Director at The Institute for Urban Design, introducing the evenings topic and Urban Design Week.
The first speaker of the night was Alex Washburn, Chief Urban Designer of New York City, gave a quick and dirty overview of urban design in the City and Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC.
Second up was David Hopkins who told us about the East River Ferry Project.
Third in the lineup was Craig Dykers, Principle at Snøhetta who spoke about the design of Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan.
Damon Rich spoke next and had some entertaining comments to make concerning urban planning for the City of Newark, NJ.
Telling us about DOT’s strides towards creating pedestrian friendly public open space was Andy Schwartz. (The battery in the flip camcorder died so I had to switch them out real quick so there are two clips with a little bit missing between)
Zooming way out was Matt Dellinger as he detailed the current plans for Interstate 69.
The first lady presentin during the evening of presentations was Barbara Wilks talking aboutd nature in cities.
Following up was Sarah Caples, who spoke about incorporating cultural aspects into public design.
Eric Demby elaborated on his Brooklyn Flea project and it and its ilk affect the built environment by programing and activating it.
Cracking wise on his own project, Micheal Samuelian gave us the skinny on whats happening in Hudson Yards.
Grace Tang gave us the low down on what James Corner’s Field Operations have planned for Fresh Kills Park in Staten Island.
Eric Sanderson spoke to us about the recently completed Manahatta book and the broader Welikia Project.
The final video I shot was of Peter Mullan telling us about the High Line. (flip cam ran out of memory at this point)
Unfortunately the memory capacity of my camcorder and digital camera truncated the final presenter all together. She spoke about recent development in the Bronx and assured us that the Bronx is on a strong trajectory, growing in the right places (near mass transit and transportation corridors) and will soon reach its maximum population once again.
This event was hosted by Le Poisson Rouge [Map] which is “Dedicated to the fusion of music, film, dance and visual art, Le Poisson Rouge is a multimedia art cabaret founded by musicians on the site of the historic Village Gate.” Click here for other summaries of other Le Poisson Rouge events I’ve blogged about.
Verdant Cities 