New Model City: Designing (New) New York in Green, Blue, Yellow, Orange and Red

Introduction

Twentieth century New York enjoyed a reputation as a prototype for urban life, in all of its cultural and industrial manifestations. However, in the current global environment New York’s status as the global “model city”is being challenged against a new set of localized conditions. These include changes in land value, use and zoning, shifts in various levels of policy, stewardship, and ownership (public, private or public/private) to the reconfiguration and implementation of complex and interrelated natural and man-made systems.

Similar to many other world cities, the changing nature of industry and transportation in New York City has generated a magnitude of development on the waterfront in recent years, wrought by lack of consistent regulations, debate, political action, and economic and physical strategies.

Historically the New York Estuary is among the nation’s most active waterways with significant industrial and logistical operations on its' banks. As in many cities this activity waned; large tracts of land and associated infrastructure became underutilized and dilapidated.

 

The need for new developable territory within city limits, pressure of growth and reorientation of public and private activities toward the water have all spurred an unprecedented amount of high-density development on the waterfront of the city.

In 1993, the City adopted new waterfront zoning regulations which have a large impact on the future development of these new zones of change at the water’s edge and beyond. Currently the New York City Department of City Planning is reevaluating its zoning regulations for the waterfront. With a new public awareness for the need to establish new regulations, the studio will engage waterfront re-zoning discussion, informed by an entirely new set of factors. Therefore throughout the semester, we will have an ongoing and direct dialogue with key professionals, stakeholders and decision makers to discuss and evaluate existing and proposed configurations, internal composition of typologies, landscapes, material constructs, energy dependencies, supporting infrastructure, and responsibilities toward socially, economically, and environmentally sound dynamics for a New New York as a "New Model City."