United Streetscapes

In order to address the shrinking, threatened and already scarce public realm of New York City, new urban design strategies need to be implemented and embedded in the existing and complex streetscape of Manhattan. The public space needs to be rethought, interconnected and clustered to regain qualitative and accessible open space for every user of NYC.

The main conceptual design proposal is to strive to cluster and interconnect the public space in the proximity of the U.N. Headquarters in New York City in order to create a secondary lingering loop closure in anticipation of the development of U.N. Esplanade in the next decades.\nAt the same time, as previous spatial and functional research of the public space endorse, these spaces of collectivity need to be rethought in order to address the erosion of the already scarce public realm of NYC, the privatization and the over programming but should also contrast with the hyper-securitization of the U.N. HQ area. By ‘rethinking’ we mean a procedure in such a way that the spaces allow and stimulate collective use and that their vibrancy and vitality is increased. The rethinking should at the same time fortify the spaces for democratic practices, places where a wide variety of people of different gender, class, culture, nationality and ethnicity intermingle peacefully and participate with a freedom of action.\nThis conceptual design proposal could be achieved by adding a new irregular layer to the urban streetscape that breaks with the ordinary street grid of NYC and carves its way through the existing urban fabric in order to interconnect and cluster the public spaces in the proximity of the U.N. HQ.\nThe typical street blocks of NYC provide different - currently unused - opportunities allowing the interconnection and clustering of the collective pockets by implementing small interventions or changes to the streetscape. In this project proposal four different site-specific urban interventions were presented: the connection of the waterfront with inland areas, the pedestrianized street, the introduction of accessible urban gaps and open and accessible courtyards.\nThis pilot project of rethinking, clustering and interconnecting public spaces could be embedded in other parts of Manhattan in order to formulate and provide a solution for the scarce and shrinking public realm of NYC as a whole. It would entail a new network of highly valuable open and collective spaces that can keep growing and growing.