It’s been a week of big projects, big plans, and big ideas.

New York University has announced the NYU 2031 plan, an anticipated 40% growth of the institution in the city over the next 20 years. The university has worked with SMWM, Grimshaw Architects, Toshiko Mori Architect and Olin Partnership to develop what it calls “a strategic framework to guide the University’s growth.” The plans, which address academic, residential and public space, and which NYU President John Sexton says will be strongly community-minded, are broken down into three parts: expansion and development of the core campus, open space improvements, and the establishment of new NYU locations within the city at East River Science Park, in Downtown Brooklyn and on Governors Island. The plans have received a lot of attention and renew the conversation about sustaining competitive institutions in a city so limited in space. Love it or hate it, we’ll all have to wait and see how the big ideas start to play out — the proposals have been framed as the design team’s “recommendations,” and they will continue to review and refine them over the next 25 years. The New York Times reports that Cooper, Robertson & Partners is working on the design of the Downtown Brooklyn site and Polshek Partnership Architects will be tackling the East River Science Park Health Corridor. And all this from the preliminary report — the official strategy will be released on April 14.

Speaking of NYU and planning, NYU’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy this week released the report How Have Recent Rezonings Affected the City’s Ability to Grow?, what they bill as the first comprehensive statistical analysis of the first 76 of the 100 rezonings the City has undertaken since 2003. The New York Times takes a look at some of the findings in more detail, or download the PDF yourself here. (While we’re on the topic of 2003, check out this lovely photo project by designer and photographer Andrew Faris, who shares his photographic wanderings from Spring 2003, when he first arrived in NYC, eager to explore with Polaroid in hand.)

Six acres of Brooklyn Bridge Park opened on this past drizzly Monday, with another 3 1/2 to open later this spring. The long-anticipated project will eventually cover 85 acres, so there is still lots to do, but Metropolis claims that “this first section is any indication, it will be worth the wait.” If the chilly weather doesn’t inspire you to check it out yourself quite yet, Metropolis suggests getting a sense of the new space through a video of the park in progress or by revisiting a 2006 piece by (Omni-friend and collaborator) Andrew Blum about Michael Van Valkenburgh’s design. Or take a look at Curbed NY and Brownstoner, both of whom have photos from the event itself.

You’ve read Carter Craft’s thoughts on the big ideas put forth in MoMA’s upcoming exhibition, Rising Currents. Now you can see them for yourself. The exhibition opened to the public yesterday — though it’s not the first chance the public has had to experience the content. MoMA has been blogging about and has offered workshops and open studios with the teams over the past few months. Now exhibition curator Barry Bergdoll is looking for feedback: What are your thoughts on the exhibition’s emphasis on process?

This week we looked at hard-to-count populations for the 2010 Census. It looks like even the not-so-hard-to-count areas are proving to be more challenging than hoped. New Yorkers are taking their time sending their questionnaires back — some neighborhoods hadn’t yet seen a single response as of Wednesday. Send in those forms! Don’t make us show you the music video again…

If you liked our look back into the archives on Wednesday, you might want to visit the Museum of the City of New York’s new exhibition Cars, Culture and the City, a show that explores how New York City “played an essential role in creating today’s car culture, and [how] the car has helped, in turn, to shape modern New York.” From car showrooms that lined Broadway to the development of infrastructure to early 20th century car manufacturing in our fair city, the relationship between automobile and city offers plenty of food for thought. Then balance the historical reflection with some (unsurprising) statistics about the state of traffic congestion today culled from GPS data collected from city taxis. To put NYC driving in perspective: Between November 2008 and October 2009, “weekday traffic in [Manhattan's business] district moved at an average of 9.5 miles per hour — about the speed of a farmyard chicken at full gallop.” And then find utter beauty in traffic patterns through this gorgeous visualization project by Pedro M. Cruz that maps the routes of 1,534 vehicles over 24 hours in Lisbon (via information aesthetics):

Visualizing Lisbon traffic from Pedro M Cruz on Vimeo.

The aesthetics of Lisbon traffic from Pedro M Cruz on Vimeo.

Visualizing traffic jam in Lisbon from Pedro M Cruz on Vimeo.


The Roundup keeps you up to date with topics we’ve featured and other things we think are worth knowing about.

Midtown loungers and lunchers rejoice!  Despite rumors last week that the Broadway pedestrian plazas had not met expectations, this week city officials announced that the partial closure of seven city blocks to autos will be permanent. Traffic congestion goals were only met partially, with 7% overall faster traffic flow on average on 6th and 7th Avenue, but it looks like significant improvements in both pedestrian and motorist/passenger safety and positive feedback from locals outweighed traffic questinos.  For the official lowdown, see the DOT’s official report here. Plaza pedestrians will have something new to see this weekend — Moorhead & Moorhead have designed The Ice Heart, a project commissioned by the Times Square Alliance for Valentine’s Day, installed at 46th St. and Broadway. The 10 foot tall ephemeral valentine is constructed entirely of masonry scaled blocks of ice and will remain in place until it melts away.

In Omnibus-related news, we see that we aren’t the only ones enthralled by The East Harlem School at Exodus House. Suzanne LaBarre also took an in depth look at the school and the design of its new building for Metropolis’ January issue. For those of you who enjoyed Leni Schwendinger’s account of her underground tour of the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel, make sure you check out more of her pics in the photo essay published on her blog. And if you were intrigued by Travis Eby’s review of the Myrtle Avenue Pedestrian Plaza pop-up exhibit, it’s not too late to attend the follow-up workshop hosted by the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership tomorrow, Saturday, February 13th, from 12-5pm. Streetsblog offers its own review of the pedestrian plaza proposals and includes images of a plethora of the submissions, from Aaron Follett’s bus shelter to Christopher Pell’s tent-like open air structures.

Also on Streetsblog, the renovation of the High Bridge restoration is finally moving after a year and a half of delays. The bridge will offer a welcome link between the Bronx and Manhattan as the only bridge that is exclusive to pedestrian and bicycles between the two boroughs. Built in 1848 as a part of the Croton Aqueduct, the bridge helped deliver New York City’s water supply from upstate until it was taken out of service in 1958.

There’s a new bus in town, the Novabus LFS, and it has three doors, low floors, a clean diesel engine and a rear window! The first of the ninety new articulated vehicles that will eventually hit the roads can be found on the Bx12 Select Bus Service (SBS) route which runs between the Bronx’s Bay Plaza/Co-op City and 207th St. in Manhattan. The new design, in conjunction with off-board fare collection and enforcement of bus-only lanes, is expected to significantly reduce wait and travel time along the route, and the advanced technology implemented in the vehicles will keep maintenance and operating costs low. The MTA calls it the bus of the future. Bronx riders, hop on and let us know if you agree. (via Planetizen)

Stage-enthusiasts, take note: The New York Times reports that the Royal Shakespeare Company is constructing a theater inside the Wade Thompson Drill Hall of the Park Avenue Armory for a six-week, five play run as part of the Lincoln Center festival.  The theater is a near exact replica of the company’s home theater in Shakespeare’s hometown of Stratford-on-Avon. The performances are scheduled to run between July 6 and August 14 in the summer of 2011.

As you watch tonight’s opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics, check out the venues and facilities behind the events and festivities. Olympic host cities are challenged with the tremendous task of planning, designing, upgrading and constructing a wide range of venues, facilities and infrastructure to support and house the games and their participants, all the while being sure that the new developments can be repurposed for civic and community use after the games end. Check out Nate Berg’s Places interview with Vancouver planning director Brent Toderian about all of these challenges, the Vancouver model of city building, and the choice to focus on sustainability over architectural exuberance. Then flip through The Infrastructurist’s slideshow of Vancouver’s Olympic construction. Arenas are up first, but stay tuned for looks at the visitor and athlete complexes and the city’s transportation improvements, coming soon.

Despite some new construction and renovation projects that are moving forward in the city, not everything is going so well. The New York Times looks at the financing and control struggles throwing our city’s parks into limbo. As the city’s coffers have become depleted by the recession, city parks are increasingly looking to private options to help finance construction and maintenance. Brooklyn Bridge Park is looking to concession stands and even fees from adjacent housing developments to help raise cash. The problem isn’t limited to New York City — parks nationwide are tackling similar problems.

Stalled construction sites have been one of the most visible indicators of economic woes. Last year the DOB created a task force to address the problem of stalled sites, and last summer started releasing regular reports on dormant projects around the city. Now Councilman Brad Lander has created a website highlighting stalled development in his Brooklyn district, which ranges from Windsor Terrace to Gowanus to Cobble Hill, in an effort to highlight the plight of neighborhoods when developers pull out of construction projects, leaving holes in the urban fabric. If you live in his district, click through and notify him of the conditions of the neighborhood.

Now we send you into the holiday weekend with two of the more unusual items that came across our desks this week — a pirate museum and liquid glass:

The Wall Street Journal reports that Canadian developer Jerry Shefsky is hoping to begin construction on a $100 million aquarium / pirate museum in Times Square if all goes according to plan. As it’s slated to be located inside a seven-story skyscraper at 11 Times Square, the attraction will largely be made up by educational exhibitions and the swashbuckling museum instead of the heavy water tanks you typically find in aquariums.

Physorg.com published an article with a hyperbolic title that we’re tempted to believe — “Spray-on liquid glass is about to revolutionize almost everything.” Applications for the product are being researched at the Leibniz Institute for New Materials in Saarbrücken, Germany and it is already being tested in the wider world by organizations as varied as a hospital, a train company and even a German burger joint. (via kottke)


Images, top-bottom: Times Square, courtesy of Flickr user Jack Amick. Novabus LFS, courtesy of the MTA. A stalled development at 333 Carroll Street, referred to by neighborhood residents as “The Hell Building,” via stalleddevelopment.com. The Roundup keeps you up to date with topics we’ve featured and other things we think are worth knowing about.

Photo via core77

As week two of rescue and recovery began in Haiti, the design community began to weigh in on what shape reconstruction should take. But before that can take place, what Haiti needs most of all is money. The best intentions do not ease the distribution or delivery of old shoes, water bottles and canned food. Nor should the urgency of creating temporary shelters frustrate attempts at long-term rebuilding. Canada’s Globe and Mail puts post-disaster planning for Port-Au-Prince in perspective by revisiting lessons from Sichuan, Peru and Pakistan. Read a summary of Architecture for Humanity’s long-term Haiti relief plan here and get involved. Also check out Frances Anderton on KCRW’s DnA talking to experts in Haitian land use planning, vernacular architecture and building techniques on how best to rebuild the capital.

Rebuilding is never simple, as anyone who has followed attempts to rebuild on the World Trade Center site knows well. Steven Spielberg’s upcoming documentary about the rebuilding process, however, will apparently focus on the “the uplifting, innovative reengineering of the World Trade Center site through the eyes of the people—architects, engineers, construction workers and city planners” rather than the imbroglio that has frustrated progress over the past nine years.

Over on Gotham Gazette, Joan Byron asks what’s next for the Kingsbridge Armory, providing a comprehensive overview of community opposition to the project in the context of labor unions, complex coalition building, and the future of both community benefits agreements and the living wage issue. And there’s also the question of what happens now:

Having accomplished the unthinkable and by defeating a project backed by the administration, The Kingbridge Armory Redevelopment Association and its allies are gearing up to re-imagine a future for the armory that puts community needs first, doesn’t strangle the neighborhood in traffic and delivers jobs capable of lifting Bronx residents out of poverty.

Edible Schoolyard is coming to New York – specifically to P.S. 216 in Gravesend. The program, started by chef and food activist Alice Waters, aims “to create a space in which schoolchildren plant, harvest, prepare food and eat together, creating a comprehensive interdisciplinary curriculum, tied into New York State Standards, that connects food systems to academic subjects such as literacy, science, social studies, math, and the arts.” WORKac is designing the Brooklyn schoolyard, complete with a “kitchen classroom,” a mobile greenhouse, and a “systems wall” with a chicken coop and reclaimed water, composting and waste-sorting stations. Principal Celia Kaplinsky worked hard to bring the program to P.S. 216, but her passion for the project is not universal. Caitlin Flanagan slammed the program in The Atlantic in a contentious article that spurred others to come to the defense of educational gardens.

New Yorkers are no strangers to construction barriers, sheds and scaffolding. Since the structures are inescapable, why not freshen them up a little? One suggestion, a prototype of which will appear this summer, is the Urban Umbrella, the result of the UrbanShed design competition launched by the Bloomberg administration and the AIA New York Chapter. The design, by Young-Hwan Choi, an architecture student at the University of Pennsylvania/Penn Design, offers improved light, air, and pedestrian flow, and it looks downright pretty. The Alliance for Downtown New York suggests a different intervention for existing construction sites, using barriers as art installation spaces.

Speaking of streets, we’ll leave you with this video of artist Aakash Nihalani who highlights the geometry of New York through temporary tape installations:

The Roundup keeps you up to date with topics we’ve featured and other things we think are worth knowing about.