Data rozpoczęcia: 01/04/2011
Data końca rejestracji: 01/08/2011
Termin składania prac: 15/08/2011
Miasto: Nowy Jork
Kraj: USA
Close the Gap, an international design competition sponsored by Transportation Alternatives and d3, invites architects, landscape architects, urban designers, engineers, and students worldwide to broaden the dialogue of alternative solutions for sustainable urban living. The competition focuses on the Midtown sector of New York Cityís East River Greenway--a critical missing link in Manhattanís alternative transportation infrastructure.
How can the East Side Greenwayís missing link be creatively retrofitted, reoccupied, and re-greened?
How would a fully-integrated continuous greenway system make New York City more environmentally sensitive, economically productive, and socially engaged?
Can the innovative use of materials, technologies, and spatial organizations enhance our quality of urban life?
Close the Gap offers a forum for the discussion, development, and promotion of innovative urban concepts. Entrants are asked to critically examine the relationship of pedestrians and cyclists to public space, opportunities for merging the city with nature, as well as re-engagement of the individual with social environments in a Midtown Manhattan context. The competition invites a full spectrum of proposals that creatively intermingle current and emerging forms of transport.
Close the Gap calls for proposals that fundamentally transform how people move through Manhattan. The competition offers a platform for exploring emerging ethics and aesthetics in urban design, as well trans-disciplinary underpinnings that link ecology with architecture, landscape
architecture, planning, and urbanism. Close the Gap welcomes submissions that propose diverse, multi-layered, and nuanced understandings reconnecting people with cities, waterfronts, and alternative transportation systems. Entrants are encouraged to craft the fullest possible definition of alternative transportation that offers the potential to flexibly adapt and grow over time.
Top concepts, designs, and images will be selected as finalists by a diverse jury of distinguished academics and professionals. Winning and top projects will be publicized in a broad media campaign in Fall 2011. An exhibition of competition winners will be shown at the Center for Architecture in NYC, Center Gallery at Fordham University, as well as other venues. A permanent gallery of all projects submitted to the competition will be published on-line. A print publication of winning and top design proposals is anticipated.
Close the Gap proposals must provide for both passive and active uses that answer the following fundamental concerns:
* Visual and acoustic separation between the FDR and the greenway
* Access and entry portals that are integrated into the existing urban fabric
* Creative solutions that circumvent contentious territories where ownership is unclear and right-of-way is unavailable
* Reuse of the existing 60th Street Pavilion
Criteria for judging Close the Gap submissions will include depth of research, innovation in alternative transportation design, effectiveness of the design relative to its surrounding context, and originality in approach to sustainable activities including accommodation of various human activities. Close the Gap seeks proposals that promote integration of inventive technologies while providing long-term stewardship of natural resources. Submissions will be evaluated based on overall creativity in the design solution and completeness of submission requirements as outlined in the competition brief.
OVERVIEW
The Manhattan Waterfront Greenway is a planned 32-mile off-street, non-motorized public access route that could eventually circumnavigate the island of Manhattan. Part of a broader strategy, the Greenway is intended to transform barren and abandoned areas of New York Cityís waterfront into fully-integrated public space for recreational use and commuters. The East River Greenway, a segment of the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway System, is a shared pedestrian and bicycle path along the East Side of Manhattan running from Battery Park to East Harlem.
Beginning at 38th Street and continuing for 33 blocks in Midtown, the Greenway disappears--forcing pedestrians and cyclists to detour onto some of the most congested streets in the city. Only 1.9 kilometers in length and representing merely 4 percent of the total greenway, this missing link is a major deterrent to users. The gap casts a negative impact on the East River Greenway. While the West Side offers an uninterrupted path from Battery Park to Dyckman Street, the East Side segment between East 38 Street and East 60th Street remains incomplete.
The gap detour directs pedestrians and cyclists onto dangerous sections of First and Second avenues, forcing users onto the highly congested and contested streets of Midtown. The current detour zone ranks a consistently high number of accidents, making the area a particularly unsafe place for both pedestrians and cyclists. Such conditions cause many people to forgo using the East River Greenway altogether.
Since its inauguration, the Hudson River Greenway on Manhattanís West Side has helped support a significant annual rise in cycling commuters. By extending the public realm and re-appropriating lost territory on the East Side--pedestrians, cyclists, and other users can activate a sustainable non-motorized transportation network along more than 800 kilometers of New York City shoreline.
Closing the gap would signficantly alleviate safety concerns and serve a growing population of environmentally-conscious commuters.
Schedule
* REGISTRATION BEGINS April 1, 2011
* REGISTRATION DEADLINE September 1, 2011
* SUBMISSION DEADLINE September 15, 2011
* JURY CONVENES Late September 2011
* RESULTS ANNOUNCED Mid October 2011
* SUMMARY PUBLICATION TBD
http://www.d3space.org/closethegap/