Forum

The Forum draws connections between Omnibus content and current events at the intersection of design and the built environment of New York, plus other stuff worth knowing about: news, opinions, feature follow-ups, and reports from the field.

Conversations on New York #3: Benepe, Burden and Burney
Last week, New York City Commissioners Amanda Burden, of the Department of City Planning (DCP), Adrian Benepe, of Parks and Recreation (DPR), and David Burney, of the Department of Design and Construction (DDC), convened at the Great Hall of The Cooper Union for the third in the Architectural League’s series of…
The Omnibus Roundup – City of Water Day, parks talks, seniors, disrepair, and Gowanus oxygenation
Tomorrow, Saturday, July 24th, the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance is hosting the third annual City of Water Day Festival. Head to Governors Island, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Liberty State Park and the Atlantic Basin for free harbor boat tours, a children's festival, live music, and a film expo. (If you…
This Land is Our Land
Consider some simple math about people and land. If all of Earth’s six billion people were to live at the density we do here in the five boroughs of New York City, all of humanity would occupy less than one half of one percent of the earth’s land mass. Only one half…
Postópolis: Urban Portraiture
I recently spent the better part of five days sitting on a cinderblock in the courtyard of Museo Experimental el Eco, listening to various creative people, mostly from Mexico, talk about their work. I am not entirely certain why I did this, but I am glad that I did. The event…
PUBLIC SUMMER @ SUPERFRONT party pics
This past Saturday, SUPERFRONT celebrated the opening of PUBLIC SUMMER, the hula hoop canopy installation designed by KIT for New York City Explorers' Carnival. And by the look of the photos below, good times were had by all. The design for this canopy was selected at a Sketch120 charrette hosted by…
The Omnibus Roundup: underground ships, smart grids, summer outside and electric cars
This week New York City was fascinated by the unearthing of a portion of an 18th Century ship during excavation at the World Trade Center site. CityRoom provided an account of the discovery and of the urgency of its archaeological documentation, noting that the 30-foot segment of the wooden vessel began deteriorating as…
America 2050: What Will We Build?
The future of our country's landscape -- how and where we will accommodate demographic, economic and environmental changes in the coming decades -- is a matter of concern for all Americans, regardless of preference for urban, suburban, exurban or rural conditions. In "A Country of Cities," a provocative series of opinion pieces published…
Conversations on New York #2: Dan Doctoroff
Last Thursday night, a relaxed and candid Dan Doctoroff joined Paul Goldberger, architecture critic for The New Yorker, for the second of the Architectural League’s “Conversations on New York.” He discussed, with palpable affection for the city, some of the big plans he initiated while Deputy Mayor for Economic Development…
The Quiet City
Douglas Ljungkvist is a travel and architectural photographer based in Brooklyn. His latest project, "The Quiet City," explores the vernacular beauty of New York City's industrial streetscapes. Here, Ljungkvist shares a slideshow of his work and the inspiration behind the series. Click…
The Omnibus Roundup – climate change, bus lanes, outer boroughs on film and underground tunnels
Image courtesy of Sustainable South Bronx via NPR With temperatures in the triple digits earlier this week, residents in major cities like New York, Washington and Philadelphia felt the heat more so than those living in more rural areas due to the heat island effect. That said, a new
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