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Local lawmakers are putting pressure on Mayor Eric Adams to fulfill his campaign promise to make New York City greener by committing more cash to the parks department, something Adams did not follow through with in his preliminary budget. On Monday in Flushing Meadows, members of the City Council and environmental stakeholders called for a $1 billion investment in annual maintenance for New York City parks as part of a five-point plan for improving parks and access to green spaces. — Gothamist
This commitment means that the city would allocate 1% of its budget towards the parks department, which NYC Mayor Eric Adams promised during his campaign. However, in his first preliminary budget proposal, Adams only set aside about $500 million towards parks. Today we unveiled about 5 point plan... View full entry
When Mayor Eric Adams named a commissioner last week to oversee New York’s parks department, he spoke of how important the city’s green spaces were for recreation and contemplation, especially during the pandemic. But he also acknowledged having no particular agenda or master plan for the more than 30,000 acres of parkland under his control. — The New York Times
In response, all five of New York’s borough presidents have come together calling for Mayor Adams to plant a million new trees by 2030, reviving former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Million Trees NYC initiative. In addition, they also asked Adams to honor his campaign pledge to allocate 1 percent... View full entry
In February, Amazon announced its latest design for a $2.5 billion headquarters in Arlington, "the Helix." Once visual renderings for the campus were released, the architecture community was quick to respond. Besides heavy criticism of its overall design, discussion regarding its surrounding... View full entry
In true parametric fashion, the design team at Zaha Hadid Architects reveals their plans for a new museum located in Shenzhen, China. The new Shenzhen Science & Technology Museum will be the "pearl" of the city's technology and innovation corridor in the Guangming Science City. The... View full entry
The Parks Department is looking to curb the cost of constructing new public bathrooms — by making them smaller...the agency is exploring stand-alone units tested in other cities, such as the Portland Loo and trailer-like bathrooms in Boston. — THE CITY
Following a $4.7 million comfort station at Ferry Point Park West and the prospect of a $6 million bathroom for another park on Staten Island, Mayor Bill de Blaisio vowed to address the rising costs to taxpayers, reports THE CITY. Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver has called the current... View full entry
Opened in late September, [Scissortail Park] is a new civic front yard on the edge of downtown, framing views of the city’s skyline with its concert stage and broad lawn.
“It’s an aspirational park, in that it’s the kind of amenity that people in Oklahoma City used to imagine only existing in other places,” says Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt.
— citylab.com
Regarding the park’s generous, publicly-oriented design, CityLab’s Zach Mortice writes, “As a gathering space in the heart of the city, Scissortail Park aims to find a large and diverse audience with a wide range of features and landscape types. Pedestrian and biking paths... View full entry
Detroit natives can recall the neighborhood of Fitzgerald and its transition from a lively community to a vacant and foreclosed part of town. Today, the neighborhood is poised for change again, as landscape architects Spackman Mossop Michaels (SSM) work to help revitalize the community... View full entry
There is the vision of parks, and public space more generally, as space free from institutional control or coercion—from police, or parks ambassadors, and encroaching privatization. And then there is the vision of public space as controlled and orderly, for passive use, or for recreation and entertainment. 'Users of this space must be made to feel comfortable, and they should not be driven away by unsightly homeless people or unsolicited political activity...' — The Local
With the privatization of spaces steadily increasing the idea of a genuine public space seems to be an ideal of the past. The importance of public space, specifically public parks is an integral part of a thriving city and community. However, laws and new policies are being re-configured to... View full entry
“We want this to be an evolving place for people to come back again and again,” said [Lesley Hoffarth, president and executive director of Forest Park Forever]. It will change with the seasons and change as people decide how to use it, she said. — St. Louis Today
Having easier access to green urban spaces and thoughtfully sprucing up public parks would ideally be higher priorities for cities across the U.S. In Missouri, nonprofit conservancy Forest Park Forever and the City of St. Louis celebrated the groundbreaking yesterday of the upcoming 17-acre Nature... View full entry
The iconic landscape of New York wouldn't be complete without a view of Central Park. But, what if the beloved New York staple could have looked different? It's hard to envision Central Park any other way, but after the uncovering of a long forgotten park plan was rediscovered renderings could... View full entry
Construction has begun on Atlanta's soon-to-be largest park by John Portman & Associates. The repurposed quarry pit will not only provide an outdoor recreational area but also create 2 billion gallons of emergency drinking water for Atlanta, increasing the city’s emergency water reserves... View full entry
In Mexico City, a set of urban parks have been built on the city's outskirts to revitalize the neglected suburban neighborhoods in which they reside. Designed by Francisco Pardo Arquitecto, the Mexico City-based firm has replaced a once contaminated water stream and paved lots with basketball... View full entry
As Moscow’s Zaryadye Park approaches its first birthday next month, the city’s chief architect, Sergei Kuznetsov, is defending the Diller Scofidio + Renfro-designed green space for an unexpected feature: its aphrodisiacal properties. Just a stone’s throw from the Kremlin, the firm’s carefully crafted experiment in “wild urbanism” has lived up to its billing, apparently, becoming something of a hotbed for outdoor lovemaking. — news.artnet.com
Moscow's one year old $245 million public park by Diller Scofidio + Renfro was meant to bring freedom of exploration and a feeling of comfort within the urban setting. The space provides visitors with an amphitheater, flora-covered terraces, green spaces with views of the city, and a 230 foot... View full entry
An unmistakable irony creeps vinelike through Olmsted’s landscape theory: It takes a lot of artifice to create convincing “natural” scenery. Everything in Central Park is man-made; the same is true of most of Olmsted’s designs. They are not imitations of nature so much as idealizations, like the landscape paintings of the Hudson River School. Each Olmsted creation was the product of painstaking sleight of hand, requiring enormous amounts of labor and expense. — The Atlantic
For more on Olmsted and his parks today, check out some past articles:First commemorative statue of Frederick Law Olmsted to be unveiled in North CarolinaObama chooses Jackson Park as the site for his Presidential CenterAlbright-Knox Gallery announces short list of firms for $80m expansion... View full entry
What do you do with a sad, funky, abandoned trolley terminus? Well, if it's the former Williamsburg Bridge Trolley Terminal under Delancey Street in New York City, you make the world's first underground park by virtue of adding some mirrors, skylights, and vegetation. One acre in size, the freshly... View full entry
