Mayor Mike Bloomberg and the New York City council announced a new 10-year plan and set of ambitious projects that will dramatically remake the city’s 520 miles of shoreline. The city government says the new approach, which is the first major plan focused on the waterfront in two decades and the first ever for waterways, will provide a “sustainable framework” that will improve  access to the waterfront, create new recreational spaces and natural habitats, increase the use of water-based transportation, and offer new opportunities for redevelopment and economic growth.

Along with the plan, there’s a new “action agenda” created with the Economic Development Corporation targeting 130 projects for funding and completion over the next three years. Among the major projects are more than 50 acres of new waterfront parks, 14 new waterfront esplanades, and a new commuter ferry service. These projects are expected to create 13,000 construction jobs and at least 3,400 permanent maritime and industrial jobs.

Mayor Bloomberg said: “New York City’s waterfront has always played a major role in its history and is one of its greatest assets – we have more miles of waterfront Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, and Portland combined – but for decades New Yorkers have been blocked from it and it’s become less and less a part of their lives. We’re committed to making it a part of New Yorkers’ lives again by completely revitalizing the waterfront and waterways.” Amanda Burden, the dynamic head of NYC planning and chair of NYC’s planning commission, added that “our water is the connective tissue between our boroughs and is, in effect, our Sixth Borough. We are now planning for our waterfront and waterways with the same intensity and passion that we have traditionally planned for our land.” She added: “We can [...] use our Blue Network of waterways for transportation, recreation and education, for improving water quality, and for the first time addressing the challenges of global warming and sea-level rise.”

Another big plus: the plan is expected to help push forward NYC’s bold green infrastructure plans, which were approved last year. While there are some $1.6 billion in water treatment plan upgrades (including $650 million in new grey infrastructure), the green infrastructure plans will lead to $1.5 billion added for natural approaches to stormwater management over 20 years. Perhaps this is not enough, but the waterfront plan does call for revamped regulations that can ”streamline design and permitting processes for the incorporation” of private sector-led green infrastructure projects.

Burden said Vision 2020 was the result of a ”year-long, participatory planning process involving multiple agencies and organizations and input from New Yorkers in every borough.” Hundreds of public comments submitted online were used to create what seems to be another model big-city plan from this city’s management team and a very suitable companion for the ground-breaking PlanNYC.

Via: Dirt Blog

With the Queens Plaza Bicycle and Pedestrian Landscape Improvement Project, the New York City Department of Planning and Economic Development Corporation are moving forward with efforts to redesign the streetscape of a dysfunctional part of Queens, New York, and revitalize JFK park. The urban design project, which includes landscape architect Margie Ruddick, ASLA, Wallace Roberts & Todd (WRT), Marpillero Pollak Architects, Leni Schwendinger, a light artist, among others, and will also involve the innovative reuse of materials from the construction site. One smart application of reused materials: broken concrete medians that cover approximately 14,000 square feet of “unusable space between lanes of traffic and in Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) maintenance areas,” says WRT. While this redesign can achieve a whole set of “goods” like increasing pedestrian and bicyclist safety and creating a more artful urban landscape, it’s also a real-life example of sustainable reconstruction in action.

WRT says Queens Plaza is an “extremely busy” vehicular corridor that provides connections for 140,000 vehicles moving between Queensboro Bridge, Manhattan, Queens Plaza Boulevards North and South, Jackson Avenue, and other streets. The area is also dangerous: over a three year period, there were 23 accidents, mostly involving jaywalkers. This is six times the national average for urban streets. As a result, one of the key goals was to improve the “accessibility and functionality of the crosswalk and bicycle path systems.” Reused materials play a major role in this.

According to Tobiah Horton, a landscape designer with WRT, the reused concrete medians ”physically block passage across vehicle lanes and visually indicate to the pedestrian who is still safely on the sidewalk that it is impossible to cross.” In addition, the textured and irregular appearance of the medians, which can perceived as looking ”scary or dangerous” actually make pedestrians safer. ”With a perception of danger, here perceived in texture and irregularity – a heightened sense of awareness and care is created in the user. Paradoxically, what is smooth, clean and without remarkable characteristics actually creates a dangerous environment of speed and inattention.”

Beyond calling attention to the dangers of crossing the street in such a busy area, these pieces of reused transportation infrastructure are also artful in a shabby chic kind of way, and may even resonate with the hardened pedestrians in this evolving neighborhood. Horton adds “keeping some traces of the old neighborhood in the new design comes to mean something for a neighborhood that is undergoing a rapid stage of change. Keeping the material in a relatively unprocessed or rough state allows for it to still be perceived as sidewalk, but with some suggestion of it as a demolition waste material. These lingering identities from the former use and the demolition process combine with the new identity as landscape element to suggest a way of looking at waste as resource with potential value and meaning.”

Importantly, this technique shows that designers working on urban redevelopment projects can safely salvage and reuse materials on site in an efficient manner. Horton says approximately “1,000 CY of broken concrete was used, saving transportation, disposal, crushing costs and impacts. Our rough calculation suggests that approximately 1.7 Billion BTUs of embodied energy is conserved in the reuse of this material in a higher form than crushing for road base. Additionally, we estimate that a release of 60 tons of C02 (principally from cement production) was avoided by not installing a typical DOT median feature composed of new concrete and other new materials.” Moreover, those rough surfaces meant no energy was wasted polishing them up.

Also worth noting: given these medians are made up of broken concrete, they are also permeable. WRT didn’t provide info on whether these new medians will function as green infrastructure and use natural systems to manage stormwater, but they say the “the uplift of the sidewalk suggests the opening of the impermeable urban surface” and opportunities for “green space, permeability, and infiltration.” Perhaps that piece will be coming soon.

The project is expected to be completed by fall 2011. See an interview from Urban Omnibus with the project designers. Also, check out an ASLA animation that explores some of these concepts, “Building a Park Out of Waste.”

Via Dirt

Via: Studiogblog

The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board and the Minneapolis Parks Foundation, working with creative partners Walker Art Center and University of Minnesota College of Design, announced Tom Leader, ASLA, owner of a Berkeley-based landscape architecture firm, and Kennedy & Violich Architects won a competition to design 5.5 miles of the Upper Mississippi Riverfront, beating out major firms like Ken Smith Workship, Stoss Landscape Urbanism, and Yu Kongjian’s Turenscape. More than 44 teams from 14 countries submitted design proposals.

The 14-person jury evaluated the finalists’ proposals against a set of criteria, including how well the project “establish parks as the economic engine for development along the river; knit communities on both sides of the riverfront to and across the river; and re-­focus Minneapolis and the region toward one of the three great rivers of the world.”

The winning “Riverfirst” proposal, with its focus on water, health, mobility, and the “green economy,” was deemed the best at meeting these goals. David Fisher, Superintendent Emeritus of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, said: “The team grounded their proposal in proactive outreach to the community, demonstrated extensive research, and posited several multi-­‐layered solutions unique to these 11 miles of riverfront and the habitat, communities, businesses, infrastructure, and culture intrinsic to our region.”

Riverfirst will use “landscape design, green products, and public education initiatives” to complete a ”gradual transformation” of a U.S. army-run pool into a “more natural, living river.” In addition to restoring the river, the new landscape will incorporate green infrastructure technologies to improve local stormwater management. In fact, the designers argue their project will offer a ”comprehensive remediation of the city’s storm water management system and its conceptual transformation into a system of ‘tributaries’ that are naturally cleaned with planted bio-filtration landscapes and returned to the river.”

Getting a bit technical, the team says the landscape design will actually facilitate the rebirth of the river, and, in turn, be informed by the flow of the river. “Where water carves and erodes, subtractive design principles are used to create water remediation ravines and terrace overlooks.  Where the river deposits new material, accretive principles of design are used to mold and shape land berms for the new Park.” In other words, they are letting nature happen here.

To maximize the benefits of the environmental restoration, there will be a focus on improving the environmental and public health of the surrounding neighborhoods. Those man-made green infrastructure systems will feature wetlands that provide recreational opportunities. The new park will also get into urban agriculture. ”New opportunities are created to increase urban agriculture, provide food security and expand neighborhood access to healthy foods in ways that build community and local businesses.” To increase access for those neighboring communities, a ”multi-modal, sustainable public transportation system” will be created, featuring “continuous pedestrian and bike/ski riverfront trails” and a new bus shuttle. Also, parks will be Wi-Fi enabled and there will be a “River Talk” mobile phone app explaining all the new features.

Lastly, there is some innovative reuse of materials that we’d like to see more of. “Floating Biohaven Islands made of recycled water bottles anchored to existing bridge piers provide seven acres of protected riparian habitat for migrating birds and endangered wildlife.”

Via Dirt Blog

For over 100 years, Horseshoe Cove has undergone massive spatial, programmatic, and ecological change. From its early years as grazing land to its long military use, the Cove has evolved to its current status as one of the Bay Area’s most significant cultural, educational, and recreational sites. However, the site has been developed in a piecemeal fashion that has resulted in the abandonment of the water’s edge. Although other sites such as the Cavallo Conference Center and the Bay Area Discovery Museum draw large groups of visitors, the water’s edge has remained in a state of neglect and disuse.
This proposal for the redevelopment and restoration of the water’s edge starts with the concept creating a dynamic, mixed-use site. The Cove is unique in its combination of recreational, military, and educational uses and the goal is to support and grow this programmatic diversity. This is accomplished through the construction of an interdigitated landscape between land and water. Like the fingers of two hands interlocked, the project stitches together the larger landscape into the San Francisco Bay. Land is pushed out into the water and water is pulled back into the land. Although the overall “horseshoe” shape of the cove is retained, a much more dynamic and diverse water’s edge is created. Understood biomimetically, the folding of the water’s edge increases its overall surface area and becomes a better filter between the land and water.
The folded joint between the land and water acts as the central circulation across the site. Its meandering geometry extends the promenade and connects it back with several important site features. The interior of each fold houses the primary functions of the site. From providing improved fishing piers to creating a bermed earth outside amphitheater, this project spine connects and redistributes the activities of the site. In addition to a warming hut containing restrooms and a waterfront café/restaurant, one of the new landscape piers houses a community event space that can be reserved by the public for things such as weddings, reunions, and other social gatherings. Finally, the inland landscape folds contain programs such as a National Park Service Visitor Center and Shop as well as a bike and boat rental/repair shop.

Beyond the programmatic diversity of the project, there is also a strong desire to integrate the ecological diversity of the site into the project. Several methods have been used to restore and enhance the ecological footprint of the project. Starting on western side of the site, the existing underground drainage system is daylighted, creating a new stream that would support flora and fauna as well as providing an opportunity for interpretive walks from the discovery center. This stream would exit into a newly constructed estuary on water’s edge. In the center of the site, a newly created wetland and bio-pool would process and store the graywater from the site while providing for educational and recreational opportunities. A contemporary interpretation of the famous early-20th century Sutro Baths across the bay, the bio-pool would quickly become a Bay Area icon of health, ecology, and recreation.

The project proposes two energy generation strategies through the use of wind and solar power. The Horseshoe Cove and Discovery Center parking lot will be covered with photovoltaic solar panels. Not only will these panels provide the project with energy, but they also provide shade for the cars below. Wind power is provided through a series of wind turbines sited near the historic Fort Baker bunker in a prime wind corridor. The turbines would be painted to match the Golden Gate Bridge as a reminder of the link between 20th and 21st century infrastructure of the Bay Area.
This plan for Horseshoe Cove recasts it as a place of life, energy, and education for the region. Providing much needed amenities for the thousands of annual visitors, the project stitches together land and water to create a new hybrid edge condition.

In his state of the union address, President Obama called for 80 percent of Americans to have access to high-speed rail by 2025. An ambitous goal, but perhaps more achievable given Vice President Biden and U.S. Transportation Secretary LaHood just announced the administration was going to invest more than $53 billion in high-speed rail, adding to the $10.5 billion spent so far. According to The Washington Post, the U.S. High Speed Rail Association (USHSR) says Obama’s plans would cost $600 billion over twenty years. The bulk of those funds will need to be from the private sector, given the dire financial straights of federal and state governments.  To finance high speed rail, public sector bodies will need to partner with private-sector rail operators as well as transit oriented development (TOD)-focused real estate developers. High speed rail stations provide an enormous opportunity to recoup the huge amounts needed for high speed rail lines, but will need to be well-integrated into communities if operators expect them to be widely used. Smart design can help ensure the public sees high speed rail as a viable transportation option. Well-designed stations and public spaces may also mean denser, mixed-use neighborhoods as well.