Experiment _ City Experience through Distance and Time

Fulton Street, Brooklyn, is a very diverse street in means of people, vitality, street life, shops,.. But how get people an image of the city by traveling ahead? I Tried. By taking the subway, the bus, bike and by my own feet I traveled along Fulton Street in terms of declining speed. Subway brought me in no time from the Lafayette Avenue Station to Broadway Junction but I didn’t see anything from the city above. Bus was the most boring. Stopping all the time there was no progress and traffic didn’t make any progress. My favorites were biking and walking. Biking all the way down to Broadway Junction I first got the real experience about the traffic in Fulton Street. Driving in between the busy traffic was an experience on its own. By walking the city I started really loving her. Only in this way I got attracted to the city and its vitality, remarking ups and downs in street life. From now on I’ll only walk the streets!

Movies are made by myself and accelerated up to 20 times of normal speed.

Case Study [draft] _ Public Space in Subsurface Areas

In this case study I want to investigate the meaning of 'public' space in underground areas. Questionning the possibilities of New York Subway stations which cope each day with lots of people. Can this places be called public, and how can architects deal with this places to provice quality. Examples of big underground areas like Toronto, Montreal and Randstad (the Netherlands) are investigated.

Transformation Moments _ Presentation at Columbia University September 28, 2011

When talking about transformation, time is a primordial aspect. Change cannot happen in zero seconds so time has been significant for this research about Transformation Moments of New York City.

As a framework, three different scales set up this investigation of New York’s most significant moments of transformation. 

The story starts with the human scale of the young Brooklynite, Klara Schulte. Living in Crown Heights and working in Red Hook where she goes by bike, she meets all the requirements to mark contemporary issues of gentrification, nowadays land use and zoning, and mobility.  

The next scale considers the entire city of New York. In her history three important shifts took place in the Zoning Laws of 1916, 1961 and 2011. Each shift had been preceded by different factors like economy, identity, comfort, migration and safety all with different importance in time.

Two important questions arose. 

Is long-term thinking reduced by the Zoning Resolutions?

Does rezoning change the city’s development or goes it the other way around?

The last scale is about the time scale of all, of the universe and goes back to the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago. In this timeline the importance of our present is shown compared to the history of our existence. So questions came up about the effectiveness and importance of nowadays zoning.

Can we develop a method of proactive waiting for an unknown future?

Can we take in account future evolution in this strategy of proactive waiting?

By questioning these four statements some critiques about past and today’s development can be provoked and pull us up short.

To be continued..