Pedestrianizing experiment

This week our EBR assignment was to study the "cultural landscape", the landscape made by humans, of an urban lot designated by Parklets. 
So I went to 34th street Herald Square to snap some pictures of the newly revamped Broadway: the parklets outside shopping landmark Macy's where shrubs, bistro tables along with umbrellas are stationed.  
- Topography and history: This once car-oriented section area falls into one of the busiest shopping area of Manhattan. Now tourists, commuters and locals mix in these busy arteries. The now giant pedestrian zone area serves as a resting and safety island as well as a bike friendly lane. The parklet, one of 3 on this portion of Broadway, works as a "road diet" for the car traffic in order to allow this highly pedestrian area of Manhattan to be safer. 

Day: President day- 2/20/2012

Time: 6:30 pm - 6:45pm

Temperature: 34 degrees (felt like 20!)

Behavioral evaluation: : 

-Demographics: all ages. shoppers, tourists, couples, families, etc...
-Users patterns:  the preferred area is under the umbrellas on the periphery and then in the center area

-Occupation: reading, resting (from shopping sprees), having coffee, taking a phone call, having a smoke, eating a quick bite or enjoying a hot beverage.

-Comments: people do use these parklets: they love it! They stop there for a few minutes just time to enjoy a "time out". I was there for 15 minutes and saw people coming and leaving all this time. Most were not speaking English (French, Arab, Italian, Spanish) and seemed to be visitors/tourists. 

The city has successfully reclaimed the streets for the people - yet the only big minus is the bike lane which I don't think it was a success. I can see how mindless pedestrians don't pay attention to the cyclists  and constantly intrude the lane. I actually saw only one cyclist daring to use the bike lane and he had to get off his bike to cross the parklet.

Rehousing the American Dream

This week my curiosity took me to the MoMA to see the exhibition: "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream"


Reinventing the American dream is quite a daunting task and I really wanted to check what the MoMA had to say about this. Do these elite architects have a real alternative to what took us to the mess we are in today?  We are talking about the MoMA  here, so I was really expecting to be blown away by at least some of the 5 design projects. Well instead I kind of felt like I was at some 1950's World's fair show (The Jetsons even came to mind)  Why this sensation of deja vu? Weren't these proposals supposed to fill me with novel ideas about the future of the built environment and prompt me with optimism for our communities? So I looked closer, reading everything I could but it seemed like "Rehousing the American dream" meant putting a band-aid on these cities and suburbs instead of rethinking the problem altogether. Had architects missed an important piece of the puzzle: Connectedness? The connection within the communities and the natural environment made sense in the writing but weirdly none of the designs proposed conveyed these ideas. The renderings of the buildings (which looked like the unfinished renderings from an undergrad class) were not conveying any sense of intimacy or belonging. Further along, I was looking at funky shapes in crayola colors (art?) that did not have any cultural relationship with the local or regional culture of the inhabitants.  Another proposal, which was developed with an ecologist on board (good start!) suggested "re-wilding" :  blending with the natural habitat and even suggesting the importance of reintroducing the predators of an ecosystem; but all I saw was buildings that were forced under the turf of artificial forests... and last a flower shaped reflecting pools (biophilia?).
I was lost. In the end, I was the one who did not connect with the MoMA.