From a personal story of industrial decline to a national exploration of energy production, the artist discusses the themes that connect his body of work, including his current exhibition of photographs of some of New York's extraordinary and idiosyncratic trees.

The idea was to allow for more light and air in dense, vertical areas, and to have developers give back to the city a little bit for what they were gaining by building bigger. But vague rules led to the creation of inaccessible, inhospitable spaces with little or no public benefit.

On the eve of his departure from New York, the outgoing manager of public art for the Times Square Alliance discusses community engagement, urban placemaking and contemporary art practice at the iconic site.

"It is the ultimate virtue for architecture in an urban context to create or activate the public domain."

"The city can be likened to a living microbe."

"Comfort is an infinitely relative commodity, and thus a marker of status."

"We asked for a space in which we could do everything and anything."

"Most of us live in our own little bubbles. We know the world that we walk in every single day."

Thaddeus Pawlowski reflects on his participation in a recent professional urban design exchange between São Paulo and New York.

Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo describe their laser scanning studies of urban public spaces as an attempt to measure the invisible effect of shape and proportion on spatial experience.