New York city is following in the footsteps of Bogotá, Colombia and Curitiba, where some of the busiest city streets now have dedicated bus lanes. DOT announced a new plan this week to make 34th Street the home of New York City’s first dedicated bus lanes. The proposal would create two lanes for buses only, reducing traffic flow on 34th Street to two lanes for general traffic. The cross-town route is expected to move 35% faster than current averages. DOT’s press release has stated that the project hopes to receive funding from the Feds. We sure hope so.

The blog Brooklyn Speaks has created a report outlining changes in the Atlantic Yards proposal since the initial ESDC approved version from 2006 to the recently approved version released last December. It’s a pretty stark reminder of what’s happened since the project started, particularly since the recession began— affordable residential units are down to 300 from 2,250, open space down from eight acres to one while direct subsidies from the city from increased from 100 million to 250 million.

A Scarano building at 406 Lorimer Street in Williamsburg.

In other construction news, Brooklyn native Robert Scarano Jr. has been banned from submitting construction documents to the DOB for any projects in his home borough. Scarano, who has been one of been one of the most prolific architects of the Brooklyn “Renaissance” of the last decade, has long been accused by local residents and community groups of ignoring and even intentionally breaking local zoning laws. In the New York Times feature on the case, presiding Judge Joan R. Salzman was quoted as saying that Scarano’s drawings were “so deceptive that they call to mind out-and-out fraud.”

On a happier note, dolphins have been spotted in around the Newtown Creek, the border between Brooklyn and Queens, as well as in the East River. To check out pictures of the world’s friendliest mammals breezing by the Manhattan bridge, check out Gothamist’s photo gallery.

A collapsed bridge in Santiago.

Though the 8.8 magnitude earthquake  that struck Chile was about 500 times more powerful than the one that struck Haiti earlier this year, Haiti’s death rate was about 400 times greater, with approximately 200,000 Haitian casualties to Chile’s 500. This, as many experts have noted, is due to Chile’s stringently enforced building codes that require buildings to construct for the high seismic activity typical in Chile. As this week’s Wall Street Journal noted, many of the buildings that suffered the most damage were older adobe structures in historic parts of Santiago and in the less modern cities of Talca and Chillán. Chile’s reliance on reinforced shear concrete walls in construction is much safer and sturdier than many of Port-au-Prince’s cheaper, rebar-less buildings. Meanwhile, Popular Mechanics reports that in Japan, Hyogo Earthquake Engineering Research Center has successfully created a seven story wood-frame apartment building that can resist earthquakes rated up to 7.5 on the Richter scale. The innovation stands to especially benefit poorer countries as wood-frame buildings are more cheaply produced than many of the current options. Perhaps the structure’s design could be implemented in Southern Chile, where wood-frame construction is the norm and forests are plentiful.

Even though New York is far from earthquake risk, the northeast along with the rest of the nation has been hitting some of their own concrete troubles; as a result of shifting weather patterns, many American homes are facing failing foundations. The New York Times reports that the contracting and expanding soil that results from droughts and excess rainfall has caused movement in the foundations beyond what they are designed to withstand, leaving homes with cracking throughout. The construction boom has contributed to the problem.  Many new homes were built on sub-par lots and conditions such as steep slopes or sandy soil can help accelerate the process. If weather conditions continue to shift towards extremes as they have, experts warn that we could be in for large-scale problems worldwide.

Though cracking foundations may not yet be on the federal government’s radar, weatherproofing homes to reduce global warming has been. Maybe some economic recovery funds could go towards fixing foundations, if only the cash would be released. The 2009 Recovery Act alloted $5 billion for homeowner’s to better weatherproof their homes, intending to simultaneously create jobs and lower energy use nationwide. However, The New York Times observes that as of February less than 8% of the funds were spent.

Next Tuesday Storefront for Architecture will open “Landscapes of Quarantine,” an exhibition co-curated by Geoff Manaugh of BLDGBLOG and Nicola Twilley of Edible Geography, known to Omnibus readers as half of the force behind The Foodprint Project.  The opening is free and open to the public and begins next Tuesday, March 9th at 7 pm, with all the Brooklyn Brewery beer you can drink (aka open bar). For more information see Storefront’s announcement. See you there!


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Calling all architects, designers and artists! Now that the city has made the Times Square pedestrian plazas permanent, the Department of Transportation is launching a design competition to “refresh” the existing temporary treatments while the longer, separate process begins to design the permanent plazas and undergo a capital street reconstruction project. The updated temporary plazas are expected to be in use for approximately eight months and will be installed by mid-July. We’ve been keeping our eye on the Green Light for Midtown program since its inception and are excited to see the responses to this RFP. Check out the competition info below and contribute your ideas.

The DOT press release states:

By refreshing the temporary treatments now in place on Broadway from 47th to 42nd Streets with a series of economical, temporary surface treatments, the City will ensure these places remain vibrant, inviting and dynamic as the longer design process moves forward to transform these spaces permanently. Professional artists and designers may submit designs. Simultaneously, the capital process will begin to design world-class plazas with ample seating, new paving and underground infrastructure able to accommodate and enhance the signature events that are staged at Times Square throughout the year. The project will also completely reconstruct the roadways in Times Square, which have not been structurally repaired in decades.

“New York City is the world’s greatest stage for urban design and streetscape innovation, and no place offers as much energy and character as Times Square,” said Commissioner Sadik-Khan. “As we lay the groundwork for permanent changes, we invite artists and designers to put their own mark on an area that 350,000 pedestrians walk through daily.”

The Request for Proposal (RFP), titled “reNEWable Times Square,” challenges artists and designers living and working in New York City to think boldly about their vision for the temporary plazas, carefully weighing design components along with factors that will enhance pedestrians’ experiences and improve the setting for the many trademark events Times Square houses annually, such as serving as the anchor for New Year’s Eve celebrations around the country. Designs also must accommodate different “use zones” such as fire lanes, crosswalks, seating areas and pedestrian zones.

The deadline to submit proposals is April 16, 2010. The competition is open to professional artists and designers living and working in New York City. For more information, check in with the DOT website — the formal Request for Proposals will be posted by 5pm.


Image: Detail of a photograph by Flickr user m:k.

Food, urban farming and policy are on our minds this week, (by the way — Foodprint NYC is still on, snowstorm or no snowstorm), and it looks like the issues are peaking interest near and far: Architecture Lab reports on a project by student Jack O’Reilly that looks at how urban farming and media networks can make Manchester, England more sustainable. If that’s what they’re teaching in architecture school, imagine what we’ll be implementing in five years! In an even more theoretical analysis of food consumption, the Why Factory, a think tank run by MVRDV and Delft University of Technology, produced an animation visualizing the space required if Manhattan were to produce all of its own food. The resulting towers of food production, though obviously unrealistic to implement, are worth a look just for a sense of the scale of our massive caloric consumption.

Clearly, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has had food systems on mind of late (click here to download a pdf of FoodNYC), and his office has also decided to let Manhattan residents and workers voice their opinions about where budget priorities should lie. An online survey is now up while the next budget is being developed. Fill it out and be heard!

This weekend, if you won’t be talking food systems at Studio-X, instead check out the Bronx Coalition for Parks and Green Spaces’ annual Bronx Parks Speakup tomorrow, Feburary 27th at Lehman College from 11 to 5. The event is free and refreshments will be served. This year’s theme is Open Spaces, Environment and Health.

CUNY’s Institute for Sustainable Cities is in the midst of a four-part lecture series called Turning the Tide: New York’s Waterfront in Transition.  The first lecture was last Wednesday, but there are still three more to go.  The next one will be held on Wednesday, March 17th at 5:30 PM at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College. Be sure to register, or find out more information here. (via Freshkills Park Blog)

In federal news, Urbanophile looks at the recipients of the DOT’s new TIGER grants, and the big winner for New York is Moynihan Station, with $83 million awarded to kick-start phase one of construction (the project is currently budgeted at approximately $267 million). TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) is a new federal government program with $1.5 billion in funding for a transportation project of any kind. For more information on grant winners, see the DOT’s pdf report. And head over to Fast Company to see Rob Vargas’ infographic to make sense of what $1.5 billion gets us. (via the Infrastructurist)

While you are waiting for all this snow to melt, let your mind wander and imagine the potential for the MIT Senseable City Lab’s new Flyfire project. The idea is that remote-controlled nano-helicopters carrying LED lights would swarm in unison to form various patterns and shapes, thus creating 3D displays that move and transform through space. BLDGBLOG is excited about it – imagining web browsing, movie watching, “avant-garde rural entertainment” and more. How will you use your first Flyfire fleet?

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Cabrini-Green once housed over 15,000 people, but developed a reputation for high levels of crime and poverty. Its razing is part of a wave of high-rise project demolitions that have occurred in many US cities. Here are a few – among many – significant events in the history of public housing demolitions:

1972: Demolition begins on St. Louis’s Pruitt-Igoe housing project, less than twenty years after it was built. The massive complex was unsuccessful from the beginning, with violence and high vacancy rates. Because it was such a high-profile failure of a modernist housing scheme, Charles Jencks called the day of its demolition “the day Modern architecture died.”

1993: President Clinton starts the HOPE VI program, with the goals of improving public housing and reducing dense concentrations of poverty. Between 1996 and 2003, the program provided $395 million in grants towards the demolition of 287 public housing projects. Although it has funded rehabilitation and construction programs, HOPE VI has presided over a net loss to public housing units nationwide.

2007: The last of the buildings that comprised Chicago’s Robert Taylor Homes is demolished. Once the largest public housing project in the country, the Robert Taylor Homes housed 27,000 people. It has since been replaced with “Legends South,” with low-rise, mixed income homes and apartments, community facilities, and retail spaces.

2010: The New York City Housing Authority announces plans to demolish Prospect Plaza, a complex of three high-rise towers in Brooklyn. The complex was not known for high rates of violence or drug use; rather, NYCHA claims that on this site, new construction is more financially and logistically feasible than rehabilitation. Heretofore, the City’s strategy has been to rehabilitate existing public housing rather than replace it. The Prospect Plaza project is the first significant exception to this approach.

NYU sociology professor Dalton Conley has argued that the form of a housing project does not affect the behaviors and overall living conditions of residents nearly as much as its socioeconomic makeup and ownership structure does. Coming soon on the Omnibus, we’ll hear some of Conley’s insights in his own words as he takes us on a walk up Avenue D, part of one of the largest swathes of public housing in New York. The destruction of Cabrini-Green reminds us that public housing – as public investment, as design product, as homes of choice or housing of last resort – is very much a reflection of broader cultural attitudes towards poverty, the role of government and the function of architecture, regardless of whether we decide to replace existing high-rises with new, low-rise facilities at great cost or focus on improving conditions within existing buildings.


Andrew Balmer is Project Associate for Urban Omnibus and a senior in the Barnard + Columbia Architecture program.

Proposed designs for the Kosciuszko Bridge, via NYTimes.com, c. NYSDOT

For all the Pecha Kucha fans out there — or for anyone interested in stepping out for a good cause — Global Pecha Kucha Day for Haiti is tomorrow, Saturday, February 20th. Pecha Kucha events will be taking place in 200 cities worldwide, in the hopes of raising one million dollars, all of which will go to Architecture for Humanity’s rebuilding efforts in and around Port-au-Prince. New York has an impressive line-up of presenters, including Steven Holl, Iwan Baan, Stefan Sagmeister, Craig Dykers, and more, all of whom will be presenting in standard PK style: 20 slides for 20 seconds each. Not in New York? Check out the list of other participating cities and see who is on the roster for your local event.

New York City is one step closer to its first new bridge since the Verrazano. The NYSDOT has released four conceptual designs for the new Kosciuszko Bridge, complete with video simulation, and is asking the public to vote on their favorite. Comments and votes are being accepted through the project’s website, via email, and during public review sessions (one more is scheduled for next Wednesday).

Popular Science has jumped on the ever popular how-to-fix-our-totally-broken-infrastructure bandwagon with a new feature essay. The article, which describes new technological developments, is cleanly divided into five different problem areas: transport, water, power, telecom and sewage. Nifty inventions include a scanner that attaches to the bottom of taxis that relays information on road condition back to a city database, a new paving technique that could apparently reduce accidents by 70% in inclement weather, and water laced with non-threatening bacteria that glows to indicate toxins. Some cities are making efforts to combat the recession through civic spending on the very problems Popular Science addresses. The Dirt reports that the city council of Portland, Oregon has just announced $613 million in funding for future bike infrastructure investment to their city over the next 20 years. The article also notes that Los Angeles is said to be seriously considering a huge new fund to expand self-propelled transport.

Luna Park Entrance, via nyc.gov

The Mayor’s office unveiled new plans for three parcels of land in Coney Island this week: Luna Park and the Scream Zone. The city, in conjunction with Central Amusement International, plans on opening Luna Park by Memorial Day of this year and the Scream Zone by summer 2011. Bloomberg has promised 330 new jobs, an emphasis on local hiring, and significant infrastructure investments — and a human slingshot. (Speaking of dangerous-sounding Coney Island rides, Boing Boing uncovered a 1931 article about the safety mechanisms implemented in classic Coney rides.) Then, for international amusement park news, check out Treehugger’s profile of the Ghost Train Park in Lima, Peru, a repurposed public space designed by Basurama using an abandoned electric train line and reused or recycled materials.

If anyone has trouble believing that the way we construct our built environment has significant impact on a large scale, take a look at this report by The Ecological Society of America. Québécois biologist André Desrochers has found that landscape changes caused by humans have altered the wing shapes of songbirds in the northeastern region North America in only the past hundred years. Apparently this is consistent with the “habitat isolation hypothesis.”  In other words, the patterns of human settlement have directly caused songbird evolution in a biological attempt to mitigate the negative effects of habitat change. Ponder that over the weekend.


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