Walking through parts of New York can feel like walking through a tunnel. The city’s ubiquitous sidewalk sheds — typically blue scaffolding holding up green plywood to protect pedestrians from construction overhead — corral people into cramped, dark spaces wherever development or building repairs are underway. There are about 6,000 of these sheds throughout the city.
Popularity: 17% [?]
We all know the kiosks on the busy streets of our world cities — those small, neat pop-up booths that sell about everything, from newspapers and magazines to cigarettes and cold drinks. Kiosks mean a lot to me, and to the city itself. At these colourful places, where tourists buy their public transport tickets and commuters grab a fresh newspaper in the morning, is the metropolitan vibe at its best.
Popularity: 35% [?]
What goes up must come down.
But when?
That is a question New Yorkers start asking the minute a truck pulls up to the front door and guys in hardhats jump out and start whacking together a sidewalk shed.
Popularity: 30% [?]
The Queens Plaza Bicycle and Pedestrian Landscape Improvement Project transforms the tangle of urban infrastructure cutting through Long Island City from a harsh, disorienting industrial maze into a lush, navigable landscape, a gateway to Long Island City that organizes various flows and scales while providing a refuge for residents, workers and the road-weary. The urban and landscape design unites the surrounding neighborhoods and restores the connection between the city and the river. The project spans 1.3 miles, revitalizes JFK Park and connects it to the dramatic water’s edge below the Queensboro Bridge.
Popularity: 100% [?]
In search of the right permanent plan for the future development of Nørrebrogade - an experiment was initialized where the infrastructure was restructured. By painting the paving surfaces and thereby rearranging the street dimensions - different traffic models and hierarchies were tested for cars, buses, bicycles and pedestrians in search of a sustainable and realistic solution.
Popularity: 43% [?]
I am not a luddite, but I do have a very healthy skepticism about technology representing our salvation. In the past 10 generations, we have succeeded in making an enormous mess, thanks to technology, a mess of such proportions that we are only now beginning to understand what we have done, and what the mess means for our future. Now we use technology to assess the damage, and the reports are grim.
Popularity: 30% [?]
As objects, streetlights tend to recede into that dull tangle of structures that keep our towns and cities running smoothly. They generally aren’t intended to draw any notice. But maybe its time to start appreciating the possibilities. When well designed–which the typical American streetlight is emphatically not–they can make our urban environments more appealing and livable. Part of that challenge includes making them more sustainable: At present, street and highway lighting in the U.S. accounts for 2 percent of overall electrical demand. Simply using energy-saving LED light bulbs would eliminate 9 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year, according to one estimate.
Popularity: 22% [?]