Archive

  1. COMMON GROUND

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    About COMMON GROUND

    March 1–May 1, 2023

    The Plaza at 300 Ashland, Brooklyn

    Cheryl Wing-Zi Wong’s COMMON GROUND is a site-specific, interactive public artwork comprised of a colorful seating landscape and floor motifs that dance across the plaza. Drawing inspiration from the geometry of shrines and sacred spaces and referencing the terraces of the site, this architectural intervention transforms the plaza into an oasis for sitting, socializing, and gathering by day and by night. COMMON GROUND creates a bold, joyous space, and offers a playable topography to embrace the here and now. As a community hub, COMMON GROUND aspires to cultivate togetherness and resilience, while encouraging moments of pause, reflection and play.

    During the evening, COMMON GROUND creates a shared synesthetic experience. The pavilion is illuminated with color-changing lighting and sensors that register environmental audio. Light animations shimmer across the sculpture in response to nearby sounds — the movements of passersby, footsteps climbing on the structure, voices, the hum of traffic. These dynamic colored lights blend with the vibrant hues of the topography, playing with our perception of color. Here, COMMON GROUND is a place of joy and light, celebrating inclusion, diversity and togetherness.

    Lighting design and programming by Xena Petkanas and Christoph Gisel of Arup. Lighting and controls provided by Nanometer and Electric Lighting Agencies.

    COMMON GROUND is part of Van Alen Institute’s Public Realm R+D program, intended to surface the work of emerging designers and test new strategies to bring people together in public space. The installation is co-produced by Van Alen Institute and the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. Presented with support from Two Trees Management Co.

    About Cheryl Wing-Zi Wong

    Cheryl Wing-Zi Wong is a New York-based artist and trained architect working at the intersection of art, architecture and the public realm. Wong’s work investigates the transformation of space over time and seeks to challenge social and political boundaries through sculpture, installation, performance and site-specific architectural interventions. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Cheryl received her B.A. in Art and Italian at the University of California at Berkeley, studied sculpture at Brera Academy in Milan, Italy and earned her Master of Architecture from Columbia University GSAPP. She has completed public art commissions with various institutions to activate underused public spaces, including: New York State Thruway Authority, New York City Parks, Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy, City of Calgary, City of Inglewood and Washington DC Public Schools.

    Visitor Info

    The Plaza at 300 Ashland is conveniently situated in the heart of the Brooklyn Cultural District, at the intersection of Lafayette Ave and Flatbush Ave. The plaza is easily accessible – located only a short walk from the B, Q, 2/3 and 4/5 subway lines at Atlantic Barclays, the G train at Fulton St, and the C train at Lafayette Ave, as well as a number of bus stops. There is also paid parking along the surrounding streets.

    Tag us online using the hashtag #CommonGroundDTBK:

    @cherylwzw | @van_alen | @downtownbrooklyn

    Performances

    NuTribe Dance Company + Mark Morris Dance Group

    Wednesday, March 1
    6–6:30 pm

    Celebrate the launch of COMMON GROUND with an improvisational performance in the art of Waacking and Krumping by NuTribe Dance Company and Mark Morris Dance Group teaching artists CocoMotion and Luffy.

    Peniel Guerrier and Kriye Bode

    Thursday, April 6
    7–8 pm

    Peniel Guerrier and Kriye Bode will bring Haitian Rara to the plaza with an enchanting performance that calls all to rejoice in the energy of life as a community.

    Kendra J. Ross

    Thursday, April 13
    7–8 pm

    Kendra J. Ross, dancer, choreographer, and teaching artist, gives us a glimpse of her latest work in progress.

    Soles of Duende

    Thursday, April 20
    7:30–8:15 pm

    Soles of Duende, the all-female multicultural trio, present a spirited collaboration across disciplines in celebration of Tap, Flamenco, and Kathak dance.

    JUNIOR THESIS

    Saturday, April 22 (rain date: April 29)
    Time TBA

    Pratt Institute’s fashion department will close out their academic year with JUNIOR THESIS, a fashion performance featuring selected works from year-end collections.

    Press

    Brooklyn Magazine

    Colorful new public art in downtown encourages ‘reflection and play’

    Time Out New York

    This new colorful installation in downtown Brooklyn is the perfect Instagram shot
  2. Gowanus Action

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    About

    To do community-centered work, we need to be an active member of our own community. 

    Since moving to Gowanus in 2020, we’ve collaborated closely with our neighbors to support local, resident-led design projects. In order to understand how we could best support our new neighbors, we launched the Neighborhood Design Fellowship, a paid design-training program where residents learn about design justice and work together on Gowanus-based projects that promote equity, inclusivity, and community-driven change. The Fellows identified the Points of Agreements — a comprehensive though non-binding rezoning plan between the city, developers, and the Gowanus community — as the focus of their ongoing work. With our support, they’ve launched two projects that address the Points of Agreement, including the historic and continued Gowanus Canal pollution and the Gowanus Houses Community Center renovation and reopening.

    We also host the monthly Community Board 6 meetings, throw an annual block party celebrating the creativity and culture of Gowanus, and partner with neighboring organizations to address issues identified by the community.

    Projects

    Hear from Locals

    Gowanus Houses Community Photo Album

    Help us create a Community Photo Album that celebrates the Gowanus Houses community!

    Interviews from Old Timers Day at Gowanus Houses, August 2022

    In late Summer of 2022, residents of Gowanus Houses past and present gathered for the annual Old Timers Day. As part of an ongoing storytelling project, we spoke to event attendees about memories from the Houses and what community means to them.

    Q&A with Steven Koller, Neighborhood Design Fellow

    One of our Gowanus fellows tells us about a new project to increase water quality awareness in the neighborhood.

    Annual Block Party

    Van Alen Block Party 2022

    Thank you to everyone who came out for our second annual Van Alen Block Party on October 22, 2022! This spectacular day was made possible by the help of our Gowanus Fellows, along with our generous supporters and the countless performers, vendors, and volunteers who transformed a Brooklyn block into an epic celebration of community and public space.

    Van Alen Block Party 2021

    Thank you to everyone who came out and made Van Alen Institute’s inaugural Block Party in Gowanus an incredible success.

    Supporters


  3. Placemaking Evaluation Fellowship

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    Van Alen Block Party, October 22, 2022. Photo: Argenis Apolinario

    Overview

    The Van Alen Placemaking Evaluation Fellowship provides hands-on experience evaluating the power of design to bring life to public spaces. Seven undergraduate and graduate students evaluate the quality of public life at 2-3 sites in New York City using the tools and methods of Gehl, a pioneer in understanding how design of public spaces can improve civic life.

    Participants gain the opportunity to learn valuable skills in evaluating public spaces, while exploring the city through Van Alen’s co-produced installations and programs, and sharing their insights and skills with Van Alen’s community organization partners.

    With the support of the Senior Fellow the cohort take its collected data and observations, and produce a variety of creative, impactful images that express the insights they have gained into how public spaces serve communities, and how those spaces might be made more inclusive.

    Core Components

    • In-person training on using Gehl’s Public Life Tools
    • Collecting data on-site at the Van Alen Block Party in Gowanus
    • Collecting data on-site at 2-3 installations co-produced by Van Alen Institute in NYC
    • Educational workshop on methodologies for observing and analyzing public life in public spaces
    • Learning how insights are applied in Van Alen’s partner organizations
    • Optional field trip to share fellows’ observations and skills with Van Alen’s community partners in Albany, NY

    Meet the Fellows


    Who They’re Working With


    What They’re Working On

    Neighborhoods Now: Bed-Stuy Gateway BID

    Building on Winter Wonderland, an open-air holiday market supporting local small businesses.

    Public Realm R+D

    Surfacing the work of emerging designers and tests new strategies to bring people together in public space.

    Van Alen Block Party 2022

    Thank you to everyone who came out for our second annual Van Alen Block Party on October 22, 2022! This spectacular day was made possible by the help of our Gowanus Fellows, along with our generous supporters and the countless performers, vendors, and volunteers who transformed a Brooklyn block into an epic celebration of community and public space.

    Contact

    Andrew Brown

    Director of Programs

  4. Neighborhoods Now

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    About

    As the COVID-19 pandemic took root, its uneven impact on the lives of New Yorkers became painfully clear. While our city’s well-resourced communities quickly purchased expertise necessary to navigate a changed world, neighborhoods where many of our essential workers live did not have the same access and resources.

    In response, in Spring 2020 the Urban Design Forum and Van Alen Institute tapped into our collective network of architects, designers and engineers. By building interdisciplinary partnerships, Neighborhoods Now has supported local organizations leading their communities’ recovery. Over three years, the initiative has evolved from rapid, tactical responses to long-term recovery strategies on a wider scale. Led by community organizations, seven interdisciplinary teams have enlivened and programmed public space, provided technical support to small businesses, and strengthened cultural activities.

    What began as a responsive six-week sprint developed into a platform for enduring partnerships and collective activism. Scroll down to learn more about each team and what they’re working on this year.

    Neighborhoods Now is made possible through a grant from Wells Fargo’s Open for Business Fund.

    Who We’re Working With


    Current Community Partners


    Past Community Partners


    Funding provided by

    Teams

    Additional Expertise

    Current


    Past

    Luisa Borrell

    Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, CUNY

    Dustin Duncan

    Columbia Mailman School of Public Health

    Gina Lovasi

    Drexel University

    Eve Klein

    CUNY Graduate Center

    Javier Otero Peña

    CUNY Graduate Center

    Alison Mears

    Healthy Materials Lab, Parsons School of Design


    2020–21 Report

    The results of our work in 2020-21 were a set of design recommendations and prototypes addressing immediate needs for COVID-19 awareness campaigns, open air dining, and outdoor education and cultural programming. Several prototypes have now been implemented, and Van Alen Institute and the Urban Design Forum are supporting additional implementation through 2022. Neighborhoods’ needs also went beyond design and physical interventions. Working groups organized financial workshops for small businesses, drafted legal templates, and collaborated with senior staff at City agencies to help neighborhoods navigate programs like Open Streets and Open Restaurants.

    Press

    Next City

    A Night Market Has Popped Up in NYC’s Chinatown

    Fast Company

    COVID-19 decimated NYC businesses. This free program is helping them recover

    Bedford + Bowery

    The Matchmaking Service That Pairs Visionary Designers With Covid Conundrums

    Curbed

    The Secret to Year-Round Streeteries? What Greenhouses Can Teach Us

    Architect’s Newspaper

    Van Alen Institute and Urban Design Forum launch online design toolkit for COVID-19 recovery efforts

    Public Programs

    Neighborhoods Now Summer Summit

    July 22, 2021

    In our 2021 update, presenters from the Chinatown, South Bronx, and Lower East Side working groups shared their achievements, reflections on interdisciplinary practice, and plans to carry their work forward.

    Sreoshy Banerjea (EDC NYC), Fauzia Khanani (Studio Fōr), Yin Kong (Think!Chinatown), Carlos Naudon (Ponce Bank), and Carol Rosenthal (Fried Frank) then joined to discuss how community organizations, city agencies, funders, and design professionals can best collaborate to help communities recover from the pandemic and thrive going forward.

    Presenting Working Groups:
    Banana Kelly Community Improvement Association; FABnyc; and Asian Americans for Equality (AAFE) and Think!Chinatown

    Neighborhoods Now Summit: Strategies for Reopening and Recovery, Day 1

    October 6, 2020

    In this two-part public forum, our participating designers and our community partners reflected on how collaborative design can inform neighborhood recovery strategies.

    Presenting Working Groups:
    82nd Street Partnership, Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition (NWBCCC), and FABnyc

    Neighborhoods Now Summit: Strategies for Reopening and Recovery, Day 2

    October 7, 2020

    In this two-part public forum, our participating designers and our community partners reflected on how collaborative design can inform neighborhood recovery strategies.

    Presenting Working Groups:
    Bed-Stuy Restoration, Bed-Stuy Gateway BID, Community League of the Heights (CLOTH), University Neighborhood Housing Program, and Cooper Square Committee

    Neighborhoods Now Kickoff

    June 26, 2020

    This roundtable session brought together the Neighborhoods Now community partners with diverse panelists to build a foundational knowledge for the working groups’ process and to help inform the public about the issues at hand.

    Community Partners:
    Leslie Ramos, 82nd Street Partnership; Rachel Joseph, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation; Medina Sadiq, J.D., Bed-Stuy Gateway BID; Leah James, Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition; Jackie Tesman, Community League of the Heights; Yvonne Stennett, Community League of the Heights

    Panelists:
    Luisa Borrell, CUNY; Melissa Fleischut, New York State Restaurant Association; Alison Mears, Parsons Healthy Materials Lab; Andrea Batista Schlesinger, HR&A Advisors; Barika Williams, Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development

    Contact

    Diana Araujo

    Senior Project Manager, Programs

    Support

    Information about sponsorship opportunities can be found here.

    To learn more about how to support Neighborhoods Now, including helping our community partners realize their recovery strategies, please contact:

    Kate Overbeck

    Director of Strategic Partnerships

    Supporters

    This project is made possible with support from


    Lead


    Benefactor


    Advocate


    Patron


    Supporting


  5. Gowanus Houses Community Center

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    Gowanus Houses community center site visit, April 22, 2022. Photo: Alisha Kim Levin

    About

    The ongoing disinvestment of the Gowanus Houses Community Center is a matter of life and death. Because the center has been closed for nearly 20 years, multiple generations of residents have been deprived of an essential community resource. Countless hours of community-building, resident-led activities have been forced to find alternative space, or have been foregone altogether—a mammoth loss to the Gowanus Houses community. Disinvestment in the center is not an isolated case; it is systemic across New York City. Other NYCHA community centers around the city are in similar states of underuse. Action and funds are urgently needed now and in a sustained fashion over the coming years to ensure members of NYCHA communities have safe, clean, activated spaces in which residents of all ages and stripes can thrive and enjoy themselves.

    Ahead of DDC’s Fall 2022 – Fall 2023 renovation, the Gowanus Houses Resident Association (GHRA) wants to spread word of the Gowanus Community Center’s reopening, and build excitement about how the renovated Center could best serve the community.  The project’s longterm goals are trifold: make the center more welcoming, celebrate its history, and transform the space into an informational hub for the community.

    Hear from the Residents

    Interviews from Old Timers Day at Gowanus Houses, August 2022

    In late Summer of 2022, residents of Gowanus Houses past and present gathered for the annual Old Timers Day. As part of an ongoing storytelling project, we spoke to event attendees about memories from the Houses and what community means to them.

    Who We’re Working With

    Andreas Tyre

    President,

    Gowanus Houses Resident Association

    Tracey L. Pinkard

    Vice President,

    Gowanus Houses Resident Association

    Kia Weatherspoon

    Founder, Determined by Design


    Community Photo Album

    Gowanus Houses Community Photo Album

    Help us create a Community Photo Album that celebrates the Gowanus Houses community!

    Our Space Gowanus

    In 2021 Neighborhood Design Fellowship: Gowanus a paid, six-month program for up to 12 Gowanus residents focused on an action campaign to bring attention to the Gowanus Houses Community Center. With Dark Matter University, the fellows drafted and assembled this pamphlet outlining the history of disinvestment that has plagued the community center and their visions for the future of the space. In October 2021, the pamphlet was distributed at our inaugural Van Alen Block Party and displayed in large format on the street-facing windows of our office in Gowanus.

    Bond Street Bash, May 12, 2022. Photo: Cameron Blaylock

    Gowanus Action

    Resident-led design projects in our home of Gowanus, Brooklyn.

    Neighborhood Design Fellowship: Gowanus

    Gowanus residents work toward the future they imagine for their community.

    GLOwanus

    A light installation to inform Gowanus residents about water quality in the neighborhood.

    Contact

    Andrew Brown

    Director of Programs

  6. GLOwanus

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    About

    The ongoing disinvestment of the Gowanus Houses Community Center is a matter of life and death. Because the center has been closed for nearly 20 years, multiple generations of residents have been deprived of an essential community resource. Countless hours of community-building, resident-led activities have been forced to find alternative space, or have been foregone altogether—a mammoth loss to the Gowanus Houses community. Disinvestment in the center is not an isolated case; it is systemic across New York City. Other NYCHA community centers around the city are in similar states of underuse. Action and funds are urgently needed now and in a sustained fashion over the coming years to ensure members of NYCHA communities have safe, clean, activated spaces in which residents of all ages and stripes can thrive and enjoy themselves.

    Ahead of DDC’s Fall 2022 – Fall 2023 renovation, the Gowanus Houses Resident Association (GHRA) wants to spread word of the Gowanus Community Center’s reopening, and build excitement about how the renovated Center could best serve the community.  The project’s longterm goals are trifold: make the center more welcoming, celebrate its history, and transform the space into an informational hub for the community.

    What is CSO?

    CSO, or combined sewer overflow, occurs when New York City’s water management system is overwhelmed by rainwater. To learn more about CSO and how this project hopes to raise awareness within the Gowanus community, we spoke with Steven Koller, a Neighborhood Design Fellow and an Environmental Science and Policy PhD student at The University of Miami. He explained:

    “New York City has a combined water management system, partially due to the fact that it’s quite an old system. 60% of the city’s water management is combined, meaning that when you flush the toilet, take a shower, or wash your dishes, all of that water gets combined into the same pipe as the water that’s flowing off the street via grates. Most of the time, that’s not an issue. But when you have a rain event — and it doesn’t need to be a big one — the system gets overloaded.

    “And this water is normally tied to a wastewater treatment plant, of which there are quite a few around the city. But during these rain events, the system can’t pump it all to the wastewater treatment plant. And so it’s released to roughly 700 outfall points around the city in all five boroughs, including at the head of the Gowanus Canal at Butler Street. On average, the canal receives roughly 270 million gallons of CSO annually.”

    More About CSO

    Nothing so far!

    Timeline

    Apr – May 2022

    Community Workshops

    Residents and students from Gowanus will learn about how water works through natural systems and city infrastructure to impact our daily lives, and how they might impact our lives in the future. Participants learn how to advocate for change through a better understanding of the problem, knowledge of where they can have an individual impact and where they have an impact at the community level.

    Oct – Dec 2022

    Installation Prototype

    Van Alen Institute will exhibit a prototype of the light installation in our storefront windows at 303 Bond Street.

    Jan – Dec 2023

    Community-Wide Installation

    The light installations will be distributed to residents and businesses in the Gowanus community, raising awareness of water quality throughout the neighborhood.

    Who We’re Working With


    Resources

    Open Sewer Atlas: Independently-run map that uses data from New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection (NYC DEP) to show where and how much CSO occurs at various outfalls around the city

    Combined Sewer Overflows: NYC DEP’s primer on CSOs, including individual actions that can be taken to reduce CSO

    Waterbody Advisories: NYC DEP’s real-time, site-specific info about water quality, largely driven by CSO events

    Gowanus Rezoning Environment Impact Statement, Water and Sewer chapter: Detailed information on how the rezoning and Superfund cleanup actions will impact future CSO

    Bond Street Bash, May 12, 2022. Photo: Cameron Blaylock

    Gowanus Action

    Resident-led design projects in our home of Gowanus, Brooklyn.

    Neighborhood Design Fellowship: Gowanus

    Gowanus residents work toward the future they imagine for their community.

    GLOwanus

    A light installation to inform Gowanus residents about water quality in the neighborhood.

    Contact

    Andrew Brown

    Director of Programs

    Supporters

  7. Neighborhoods Now: Asian Americans for Equality and Think!Chinatown

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    Launched in Spring 2020, Neighborhoods Now is a collaboration between the Urban Design Forum and Van Alen Institute to connect NYC neighborhoods hard-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic with design firms in our collective network. Over three years, the initiative evolved from rapid, tactical responses to long-term recovery strategies on a wider scale. Led by community organizations, seven interdisciplinary teams have enlivened and programmed public space, provided technical support to small businesses, and strengthened cultural activities.

    Led by Think!Chinatown and Asian Americans for Equality, the team piloted and expanded the Chinatown Night Market, a summer event series showcasing Chinatown’s local vendors and artists. Over two years, they extended the footprint of the market and activated Forsyth Street; increased outreach to potential vendors, small businesses and artists, supporting them through all permitting; designed booth systems for vendors; and designed a multifunctional kitchen studio focused around culinary programming, art, and neighborhood engagement.

    Key Outcomes

    Pilot Event: The “Chinatown Nights” pilot event kicked off on June 18, 2021 with a Chinatown-focused film program alongside local street vendors. On the cusp of NYC’s reopening, Chinatown Nights became much more than an open-air festival — it held space for the community to reunite and celebrate. To create more opportunities for neighborhood-specific cultural programming and a food market model, the team worked on financial mechanisms, marketing, design and construction of vending carts, and administration of regulations.

    Expanding the Market: In 2022, the Chinatown Night Market nearly tripled in size with 8,500 attendees, many of whom visited neighboring small businesses while in Chinatown. Attendees also reported feeling safer at Forsyth Plaza during the Chinatown Night Market compared to days when there isn’t an event.

    New Headquarters: With design work by Leroy Street Studio, Think!Chinatown is building a kitchen and studio space at 1 Pike Street. These new headquarters are their base for future neighborhood engagement efforts, and will be completed with the support of new funding from New York State.

    Looking Forward… The Chinatown Night Market has brought renewed attention to Chinatown’s public spaces, and has helped secure state investment towards Forsyth Plaza through New York State’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative. Think!Chinatown also attracted support from Citizens’ Bank, allowing them to further expand the Chinatown Night Market in 2023.

    Who We’re Working With


    Firms


    Year-End Reports

    2022 Report

    Press

    Next City

    A Night Market Has Popped Up in NYC’s Chinatown

    Creative Boom

    The Working Assembly celebrates New York’s Chinatown in this brilliant festival branding
  8. Lucid Project: Albany

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    About

    How might a neglected public alley be transformed into a space for rest, play, and collective healing?

    How might a community-led design process create opportunities for a long-term vision?

    Lucid Project: Albany aims to inspire transformational change in Albany’s West Hill neighborhood through the community-led redesign of a public alley. The project brings together West Hill residents, city agencies, and design professionals to co-create design solutions that address immediate local needs while supporting long-term visioning and planning with residents.

    Ultimately, we have three main objectives with our partners:

    • Facilitate West Hill’s access to resources that can transform their built environment and support socioeconomic development
    • Bring community members to work together and with other professionals to co-create design solutions that address their specific needs and aspirations
    • Support capacity-building efforts within the community

    Our Partners


    Our Work

    We began our work in West Hill by listening to community stories and identifying ways to lift up and build upon existing neighborhood initiatives. Though residents face a number of socioeconomic challenges tied to historical and ongoing legacies of systemic racism, West Hill is teeming with ideas and strong community-based initiatives.

    For example, the Eden’s Rose Foundation, a local nonprofit, has acquired more than 20 empty lots covering approximately five acres of land. To date, they have built Albany Victory Gardens (AVG), a large community garden that occupies more than two acres within one block. With a focus on economic and food justice, AVG trains local residents in urban farming skills, and cultivates fresh and healthy produce that can be grown and sold locally.

    Nearby, 518 SNUG (Should Never Use Guns) works to de-escalate violence in the community and mentors at-risk youth through extensive outreach programs. Their outreach workers are on-the-ground day-in, day-out, talking to young people in their community to build relationships and encourage healthy life decisions. They also hold vigils in honor of community members who have lost their lives to gun violence, and own a plot of land at AVG to cultivate crops.

    Currently, we’re focused on transforming a city-owned alley space in the middle of the Albany Victory Gardens. This community-led effort will create a safe space for community members and aims to inspire a larger conversation about self-determination. As part of this process, we’ve been organizing and participating in co-design sessions in Albany with our community partners and design team, listening to local dreams and aspirations for what this space could become.

    Updates

    Spectrum News

    Organizers plant seeds of renewal in Albany alleyway

    Timeline

    Sep 2021

    Kickoff

    On September 24-25, we held a community engagement session and co-design workshop with design team The Urban Conga and our local partners.

    Oct 2021

    Community Engagement

    We set up a table at the West Hill Farmers Market on October 17 and 24 to put forward some initial concepts and gather more ideas from the West Hill community. On October 27, we joined SNUG’s Kids Halloween Party at the Arbor Hill Community Center to share some design inspiration and gather more feedback.

    Dec 2021

    Design Review

    We hosted a design review and selection with our community partners.

    Jan – May 2022

    Partner Workshops

    We’re holding inspiration workshops with our local partners and starting site prep and fabrication.

    Jun 2022 – Jun 2023

    Site Cleanup and Installation

    We’ll host a volunteer site clean up and install the selected design!

    Supporters

  9. Public Realm R+D

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    About

    Drive-Thru by Soft-Firm. Photo: Cameron Blaylock for DBP

    Who we are as a society is defined by how we interact in our public spaces. We must reinvigorate our public spaces in ways that bring people together and strengthen the bonds and networks that help our communities heal and thrive.

    61% of Americans — approximately 200 million people — report that they are lonely. Social disconnection and isolation are linked to a host of health ailments, ranging from high blood pressure and heart disease to increased anxiety and depression. As isolation grows, social cohesion declines, causing levels of trust to fall and public life to erode. Americans who are more trusting and civically-engaged are more likely to help improve their neighborhood and offer assistance to neighbors in need. Restoring social cohesion is essential to unite, mobilize and rebuild communities in times of crisis.

    Van Alen Institute’s Public Realm R+D initiatives transform public spaces into social infrastructure. From community parks to public plazas, social infrastructure refers to the places and spaces that foster trust and social cohesion in communities. Working with the communities we serve, and some of the most innovative practitioners in design, we create spaces that unite neighborhoods by bringing joy to those who live and work there, and give people hope for the future. These spaces may provide new places to play, give support to local businesses, encourage the use of sustainable transportation, provide space for meaningful public discourse, or inspire a shared sense of civic purpose. While the possibilities are vast for each place we work, the desired outcome is the same.

  10. Neighborhoods Now: 82nd Street Partnership

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    Launched in Spring 2020, Neighborhoods Now is a collaboration between the Urban Design Forum and Van Alen Institute to connect NYC neighborhoods hard-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic with design firms in our collective network. Over three years, the initiative evolved from rapid, tactical responses to long-term recovery strategies on a wider scale. Led by community organizations, seven interdisciplinary teams have enlivened and programmed public space, provided technical support to small businesses, and strengthened cultural activities.

    Led by the 82nd Street Partnership, the Jackson Heights team set out to create and implement a roadmap for the 82nd Street commercial corridor to rebuild from the pandemic as a thriving, family-friendly business district. At the center of this goal is fostering a safer space in the Dunningham Triangle by anchoring activities directed at children and families, increase foot traffic and transform the area into a more welcoming place where community is able to support small businesses and safely re-engage with this public space.

    Key Outcomes

    Activating Public Space: In 2022, the 82nd Street Partnership hosted 68 events at Dunningham Triangle, helping the community reclaim their local park, increased small restaurants customer base, and engaged NYC’s agencies to address quality of life issues.

    Open Restaurants: Early in the pandemic, the team aimed to address the immediate needs of the neighborhood’s restaurants with proposals for responsive set-ups and shading along the street, ultimately helping over 20 businesses participate in the city’s Open Restaurants program.

    Community Building: In 2020, the team created a field office in a vacant storefront to provide an on-the-ground presence. It served as a place to distribute information, goods, and services necessary for businesses and individuals during the pandemic. They also  hosted multiple days dedicated to sprucing up the streetscape through new plants, fresh coats of colorful paint for benches in the area, and new Street Seats throughout the neighborhood to create more welcoming streetscapes.

    Visual Identity: The 82nd Street Partnership worked closely with MA’AM to develop a cohesive visual identity inspired by 82nd Street and its vibrant, multicultural community. With bold typography and an expressive color palette, it signals pride and optimism for what’s next.

    Looking Forward… The team is now engaged in conversations with NYC’s Department of Parks & Recreation about installing new furniture in Dunningham Triangle, and plans are in place to transform Manuel de Dios Unanue Triangle into a user-friendly space. The team is also working with Libreria Barco De Papel, NYC’s only Spanish-language bookstore, to use its space more efficiently to increase inventory and visibility.

    Who We’re Working With


    2022 Firms


    2020-21 Firms


    In-kind donations were provided by


    Year-End Reports

    2022 Report

    Collaborator Spotlight

    Nothing so far!

    Press

    Fast Company

    COVID-19 decimated NYC businesses. This free program is helping them recover

    Project Resources

    Nothing yet.