Archinect - News

Field Operations will lead new Fifth Avenue pedestrian corridor redesign in Manhattan

2023-10-13T17:18:00-04:00

Field Operations has announced its participation as the design lead for a new public space and pedestrianization project that will affect a large swath of Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan.

The new “Future of Fifth” project, announced by New York Mayor Eric Adams this week, will permanently reimagine the area between Bryant Park and Central Park South based on an 11-block pilot that last year added $3 million in revenue to local businesses, according to a study performed by Mastercard.

Field Operations will be joined on the project by Arcadis, Sam Schwartz, Public Works Partners, and a number of other design and engineering firms, seven of which are either minority- or women-owned business enterprises. It is seen as an extension of the city’s Open Streets program that was targeted at local businesses’ recoveries after the pandemic and builds on a larger $375 million investment in public space outlined in Adams’ “Working People's Agenda” from earlier this year.

Together, the firms wi...

Melbourne considers the future potential of high-rise parking areas as urban farms

2023-08-17T12:17:00-04:00

Urban farms and communal spaces are among the ideas for repurposing car park floors in Melbourne’s skyscrapers in the future, when it is predicted that residents will rely more on driverless and shared electric cars. The architects of Melbourne’s tallest building, Australia 108, have created designs envisioning the transformation of the building’s 10 levels of car parking into space for a vertical farm, beehives, water collection and storage, pet care, podcast studios, co-working and education.

Downtown Melbourne's potential future scenario of widely-available self-driving cars has developers rethinking millions of square feet worth of parking garages, and vertical farms are seen as a solution (along with housing, retail, and dining options). An amendment to its planning rules that would require new parking structure designs to include their retrofitting consideration has been proposed that would add an extra layer to the pedestrian-friendly ambit that mirrors policies in Oslo, Barcelona, and other global cities.

According to The Age, a 2019 City Council survey suggests an overwhelming majority (95%) of Melbourne residents support the idea of reducing vehicle traffic in Southbank by 2030.

Los Angeles approves car-free 'superblock' pilot program

2023-06-26T17:57:00-04:00

The Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday on a motion to identify a location to implement its first Park Block -- modeled after the city of Barcelona’s Superblocks, a block grid system that restricts traffic to major roads and opens up city blocks and streets to pedestrians.

The “Park Block” motion was initially introduced by Los Angeles District Councilmember Kevin de León last year. The program aims to save lives lost due to poor air quality and traffic violence. As detailed in a report by LA City Council’s Transportation Committee, the Blocks will serve to form open public space with adequate shade, outdoor recreation, greening, and stormwater capture in communities that lack parks.

Previously on Archinect: LA Councilmember introduces plan to establish Barcelona's car-free 'superblocks' in Los Angeles

The program will first be implemented in León’s District 14, which includes parts of downtown Los Angeles, Boyle Heights, and Eagle Rock. LA's Department of Transportation will choose which area will host the initial pilot, with priority given to communities that have the least access to public space, the highest health disparities, and high population densities. In addition, the Department will report back on what funding and resources are necessary to...

New York City considers making Grand Army Plaza car-free

2022-11-15T09:00:00-05:00

The city’s Department of Transportation is considering making Grand Army Plaza car-free and connecting it to the Open Streets on Vanderbilt and Underhill Avenues, officials said this week.

The NYC Department of Transportation is currently seeking the public’s feedback regarding improvements to an area that’s been defined by constant traffic, disrepair, and hazardous conditions for pedestrians and cyclists. The agency hopes it can access the $904 million that Mayor Eric Adams pledged to tackle the city’s traffic violence and improve public transportation infrastructure.

The Department is expected to draft plans within the year. Last Saturday, November 12th, they hosted an outreach session, which will be followed by a virtual online workshop on November 16th.

XZero City is Kuwait's contribution to the smart city movement

2022-09-02T12:46:00-04:00

A Dubai-based developer named URB has entered the fray of futuristic community planning in the region after publishing plans for XZero City, a pedestrian-friendly, net-zero carbon community it says will eventually grow to accommodate up to 100,000 people.

Billed as a “new paradigm in green urban living,” the car-free city will spread out over a 16-square-kilometer (6-square-mile) swath in the southern Kuwaiti desert connected by a resilient landscape which serves as the “social glue” to self-sustaining homesteaders occupying one of its initial 30,000 modular residences.

Image courtesy URB

By separating the development into different Commercial, Medical, and Educational hubs, URB says it hopes to provide a high quality of life powered by advanced renewable energy technologies, fed by biosaline agricultural produce and vertical farms, and enhanced by an equestrian track, a nature conservation center, and other attractions marketed vaguely as “edutainment.”

Image courtesy URB

An ecotour...

LA Councilmember introduces plan to establish Barcelona's car-free 'superblocks' in Los Angeles

2022-08-15T18:23:00-04:00

Los Angeles District Councilmember Kevin de León recently introduced a motion proposing a program titled "Park Blocks," modeled after Barcelona’s Superblock initiative, which would establish usable public space for pedestrians and cyclists by closing certain streets to motorized vehicles.

Barcelona’s approach reconfigured vehicle circulation in its Eixample district, allowing for up to 70% of the street surface area to be used as public space. As noted in the motion, this move resulted in major drops in noise and air pollution and increased civic life for residents inside the blocks.

Previously on Archinect: Barcelona's bold new plan to get cars off the road

De León envisions "Park Blocks" as a means to save lives due to poor air quality and traffic violence as well as creating green and recreational spaces in communities lacking parks. They would reportedly also provide other benefits, such as establishing stormwater capture infrastructure.

"A successful program needs to be thoug...

On the potential 'second draft' of the American suburbs

2022-07-28T13:29:00-04:00

It could look like another round of flight from the city. Or what we may be witnessing is a “second draft” of the American suburbs. Many communities that were once white, exclusionary, and car-dependent are today diverse and evolving places, still distinct from the big city but just as distinct from their own “first draft” more than a half-century ago.

The American suburbs are continuing to diversify and gain millennials and increased numbers of immigrants, two groups that have traditionally been confined to cities. More mixed-use and affordable developments are being delivered in suburban areas where single-family constructions have long dominated. Considerations for car-free and walkable communities are also becoming more popular in planning circles, joined by taller buildings, improved restaurant culture, and nightclubs. As Addison Del Mastro noted in the Vox piece, “the makings of a suburban transformation are here.”

Indeed. Home builders are currently attempting to meet a perplexing demand challenge by going smaller and cheaper, leading to a 7% decrease in single-family starts in June. ADUs are also starting to present themselves as affordable solutions, along with more newfashioned inventions like co-living that, in combination, are making the never-ending horizontal sprawl of the suburbs much denser. In the words of one eco...

A long-shot referendum has Berliners dreaming about a car-free future

2022-01-19T13:25:00-05:00

Berlin’s regional parliament is considering creating a car-free zone in the German capital in response to a concerted push from a local advocacy group. The car ban would apply to the space ringed by the S-Bahn train line, which circles the city center, an area larger than Manhattan.

Berlin’s mayor called the plan “unrealistic” back in May, aligning herself with the rest of the Social Democrats, who were joined by every other major political party in the country in their lack of support for the measure at the time of the September elections. A small group of German cities has banned diesel engine cars since the end of 2018.

Activists in the country have been pushing for a car-free city since 2019 when a group of lawyers formally drew up a plan known as the Volksentscheid Berlin autofrei. The group has since grown to over 50,000 supporters (enough to trigger the referendum) who believe the forced change of habit is necessary to ward off a lackadaisical state where 37% of the population falls victim to what organizers call the “dictatorship of the car.”

“It’s as much about our immediate environment as it is about the environment at large,” one of the group’s founders told The Guardian in October. “It’s about how we all want to live, breathe, and play together. We...

Oslo's city center goes (almost) car-free

2019-07-11T07:30:00-04:00

[Oslo] has just phased out the last on-street parking spaces in the city centre, giving an edge to transit, pedestrians and cyclists without banning cars. The initiative included incentives for cyclists such as new bike lanes, including better lighting and snow removal, along with subsidies for electric bikes and cargo cycles. Council also expanded transit services and lowered fares.

London, Berlin, Paris, Toronto, and an increasing number of cities are aiming to reduce traffic congestion, polluted air, and valuable urban space occupied by parked cars through policy changes that promote walkability, pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly (and in certain cases, car-light or even car-free) city centers, and an overall improved quality of life.

Oslo became a closely monitored model of a hybrid approach: after the proposal of a complete ban of cars in the capital's center was met with fierce opposition from business owners, who feared decreased commerce, the city decided to close off only certain streets to motor traffic but replace the more than 700 downtown parking spots with bike lanes, greenery, and pedestrian-oriented infrastructure.

"Cities, like Oslo, have been built for cars for several decades, and it’s about time we change it," Hanne Marcussen, Oslo’s vice mayor of urban development, told Fast Company. “I think it is important that we all think about what kind o...

No more personal cars will be allowed in Madrid's city center

2017-01-10T19:03:00-05:00

Madrid's mayor, Manuela Carmena, is serious about kicking personal cars off the road in the city center. On a November 5 show on Spanish radio networkCadena Ser, she confirmed that Madrid's main avenue, the Gran Vía, will only allow access to bikes, buses, and taxis before she leaves office in May 2019, as noted by CityLab.

Are people in love with not having to drive to dense urban locales? (Answer: for the most part, yes.) Following the lead of numerous cities that are seeking either to reduce car traffic or obliterate it altogether, Madrid's mayor actually outlawed personal vehicles from the city's main thoroughfare during the crucial days before Christmas (and later discovered that merchant profits were up over the previous year).

The latest updates in global car culture:

Paris pulls off an (almost) car-free day

2015-10-01T15:38:00-04:00

Paris’s car-free day was not without controversy, not least because it wasn’t a totally carless day and was limited to only around one-third of the city. After a standoff with police, authorities were only able to make car-free certain parts of the city centre, stretching between Bastille and the Champs Elysées, and the outer Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes, and only between 11am and 6pm. In the rest of the city, cars were allowed but at 20km an hour.

Paris, which had a mostly car-free day on Sunday, September 27th, experienced smog-free blue skies and a largely smiling populace, but it's not the first major metropolis to sort of go pedestrian. During a July weekend in 2011, famously car-centric Los Angeles shut down one of its main transit arteries, the 405 freeway, for infrastructural modification in what was nicknamed "Carmaggedon." The stay-off-the-roads frenzy leading up to the closure was so successful that most people took a staycation in their homes, leading city officials to play down the threat the next time the 405 needed to be shut down. (People still needed to spend money to stimulate the local economy, after all.)

Pedestrians and light rail retake Sydney (well, George Street at least)

2015-07-28T19:28:00-04:00

The transformative effect of removing cars from a dedicated street or urban center and creating a pedestrian-friendly area isn't a new idea, but it's a popular one. Sydney, Australia has decided to repurpose its relatively trafficky George Street into an elegant shopping and walking area bisected by light rail, with design input from French architect Thomas Richez. According to The Sydney Morning Herald Richez, who has overseen the development of numerous public spaces in Africa and Europe, is now working with the city to create a zone that would foster a more relaxed vibe among pedestrians. As he explains, "The idea is, a good tramway line is like a reserve, a pleasant place, whether people use the transportation system or not."

The tramway in Reims, with the cathedral in the background. (Photo: Richez Associes)

Even in car-centric Los Angeles, institutions as varied as The Getty Center and commercial shopping cluster The Grove have employed similar non-pedestrian design strategi...