Archive

1. Global Learning Expedition: Rwanda

   October 6, 2026 11:17 am Comments Off on Global Learning Expedition: Rwanda

   Global Learning Expedition: Rwanda

   This summer, in collaboration with Katie Swenson — Van Alen Board member and Senior Principal, MASS — a small group of Van Alen friends, staff, and supporters traveled to Rwanda to learn from the country’s deeply intentional process of reparative architecture. The trip continues to resonate with our travelers, and several shared their reflections upon our return.

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   Just 32 years after the Genocide against the Tutsi, and 64 years after the end of colonial rule, Rwanda offers a compelling case study for the reparative potential of design. With this history in mind, we began our trip in visits to the Kigali Genocide Memorial and National Heroes’ Mausoleum, which honors Rwanda’s national heroes with real and symbolic graves.

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   “An ecosystem of care”: Environmental conservation and remediation

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   Once a polluted wetland on the edge of Kigali’s industrial district, Nyandungu Eco-Park has been protected and remediated through the re-introduction of native plant species. Today, the landscape actively filters polluted water and serves as a passive recreation area for Kigali residents. “I was impressed by the country’s commitment to protecting land as national parks and natural habitat before it can be consumed by commercial development, ensuring that future generations maintain access to nature and open space,” shared Diana Reyna, Van Alen Institute’s Board Chair.

   Volcanoes National Park is part of a connected network of protected wilderness spanning the borders of Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda. It’s the sole habitat of the Mountain Gorilla, and Rwanda’s park site employs and engages surrounding communities in every aspect of the gorilla and parkland conservation, from hiking porters and gorilla trackers to anti-poaching teams. “Trekking through the mountains to stand face to face with the gorillas was a true bucket-list moment, and a reminder that this ecosystem of care extends to the landscape itself,” reflected Hayley Eber, Executive Director, Van Alen Institute.

   A leading research center for the critically endangered mountain gorilla, the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund’s campus, designed by MASS, is also an active landscape remediation project, pairing architecture with a healing mountain ecosystem adjacent to Volcanoes National Park. “The building and the working landscape are inseparable. The architecture grows out of the land and gives back to it,” said Hayley. “Meeting the people behind the work made clear that these buildings are the product of community and collaboration, not just design.”

   Diana added, “The Dian Fossey Campus left a lasting impression on me as well. Its geometric forms emerge from the landscape with a quiet elegance, while climbing vines gradually envelop the facades as the grounds mature. The architecture feels less imposed upon the environment and more in conversation with it.”

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   “A solution born of consideration”: Health equity by design

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   Designed by MASS and opened in 2011, Butaro Hospital brought medical access for the first time to more than 600,000 people living in a critically underserved area of Rwanda’s mountainous northern province. Its open-air circulation is a design choice that significantly reduces the spread of airborne illnesses in the hospital. “No photograph prepares you for the spatial intelligence of these projects,” said Hayley. “MASS builds with local materials and local hands, and the dignity of that choice is legible in every detail. At Butaro Hospital, the outdoor corridors don’t just reimagine the typology, they solve for air circulation and healing at once.”

   Echoed Van Alen Board member Ben Cruz: “The outdoor walkways at the hospitals at Butaro move patients along open-air corridors and place the waiting areas outside. These design choices are profound, simple, elegant ways to keep airborne infection from spreading. Not revolutionary, not difficult, just a solution born of consideration.”

   Health equity was a consistent theme across the trip. Komera, designed by Bruce Engel, is a community center where women can access mental health and gynecological care, along with workforce development support. In Butaro, the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE) is a world-class university training the next generation of African healthcare workers.

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   “Success is a collective responsibility”: Supporting a new generation of innovators

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   “What struck me most about experiencing Rwanda’s ecosystem of education, healthcare, community development, and design was the collective determination to move the country forward,” said Diana. “Everywhere I went, I witnessed a shared sense of purpose among government leaders, nonprofit organizations, entrepreneurs, designers, healthcare professionals, and community members. There was a clear understanding that the country’s success is a collective responsibility.”

   We witnessed this collective determination across many sectors, including at Zipline, which uses drones to deliver blood, vaccines and other life-saving medication for people and animals to communities throughout Rwanda in under 45 minutes. “The technology itself is remarkable, yet it is the commitment to solving real human challenges that makes it so powerful,” said Diana.

   The same intention shapes the Women’s Opportunity Center in Rwanda’s eastern province, designed by Sharon Davis, which trains women for careers in the arts and commercial sectors with the goal of lifting families out of poverty. And right in the heart of Kigali is Norrsken, an adaptive reuse project that turns a colonial-era Belgian school into a hub for startups and innovation.

   At MASS’s African Design Centre (ADC), we heard from the 2026 cohort of ADC fellows as they presented their final projects tackling urban and ecological issues throughout Africa. We also visited INES-Ruhengeri, a brand-new architecture school founded by Chemi Andrew, whose first class of architects graduated in 2025 with 100% job placement. 

   This future-minded energy extends well beyond design. Meza Malonga, a farm-to-table dining experience on an island on Lake Ruhondo, offers an incredible culinary experience, while educating and training the next generation of Rwandan chefs. “[Young people] came back because they needed to keep contributing, to help their community continue to rebuild. That pull to return was the thing I couldn’t stop thinking about,” reflected Ben. “The sense of civic duty is deeply internalized.”

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   Our lasting thoughts

   “It is impossible to overestimate the significance of the many institutions devoted to elevating the education, culture and health of the country,” said Van Alen Board member Mark Johnson. “The dedication of the leaders of these institutions was outstanding.”

   “Throughout the trip, I kept reflecting on what becomes possible when political will, innovation, design, and community are aligned around a common purpose’” said Diana. “Rwanda is not without challenges, but I was deeply moved by the willingness of people across sectors to work together toward solutions rather than remain defined by obstacles.” 

   “The trip affirmed what the work on the ground makes obvious: Africa is not at the periphery of architectural discourse but at its center, a site of vital spatial thinking, innovation, and future-making,” said Hayley.

   For Van Alen, these lessons travel home. The projects we visited show what reparative design looks like when it is rooted in place, shaped by the people it serves, and sustained through long-term community stewardship — principles at the heart of our community-led work in New York. We’re deeply grateful to MASS and to our Rwandan hosts for their warm hospitality.

2. Photos: NOT NOT Closing Talk + Fire Sale

   August 18, 2026 4:15 pm Comments Off on Photos: NOT NOT Closing Talk + Fire Sale

   Photos: NOT NOT Closing Talk + Fire Sale

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   On August 13, we bid farewell to NOT NOT, the exhibition and temporary office space created by Ekin Bilal and Celia Chaussabel. This space-within-a-space occupied the front of Van Alen’s office through the summer, where visitors could view Ekin and Celia’s past projects and engage with them as they worked in real time.

   ​To close out the project, we explored this notion: Architecture practices rarely start with a building. They often start with something smaller and scrappier: a piece of furniture, a feasibility study, a grant, a drawing set, or some oddly specific problem someone was willing to pay for. These projects may not typically be considered “architecture,” but they’re also not not architecture. To illustrate this, three design studio founders discussed the not-quite-architecture projects that helped establish their practices: Annie Barrett, aanda; Jaffer Kolb, New Affiliates, and Marc Tsurumaki, LTL Architects.

   Attendees then claimed a piece of the exhibition for themselves with the NOT NOT fire sale. In the project’s ethos of circular economies, display items and building materials were up for grabs — and everything left over was successfully returned to their original sources by the end of the weekend.

   Ekin Bilal and Celia Chaussabel are members of the Van Alen Vanguard, a network of 21 emerging design leaders. Activating Van Alen’s space at 303 Bond Street, the Vanguard develops public programs and exhibitions that reimagine designers’ roles in civic life. NOT NOT was the first exhibition presented as part of the Van Alen Vanguard.

   Learn more about NOT NOT

   Related Projects

   

   Urban Room

   Archive

   NOT NOT: An Office, An Exhibition

   On view June 18–August 15, 2026, Van Alen transformed into an exhibition and temporary office space of the newly-launched design studio NOT NOT.

   See Project

   

   Ongoing

   Van Alen Vanguard

   A cohort of rising professionals reimagining cities, public space, and designers’ roles in civic life.

   See Project

   

   Ongoing

   Urban Room

   Using our HQ to host public programs and as a flexible community space.

   See Project

3. What Makes Gowanus ‘Gowanus’?

   August 14, 2026 11:09 am Comments Off on What Makes Gowanus ‘Gowanus’?

   What Makes Gowanus Gowanus?

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   In this essay, architecture student and Van Alen intern Leeya Rice reflects on Gowanus Yearbook, a student-led project created by Rida Chaudhry, Ananaya Singh, and Kaye Yuvallos. Hosted at Van Alen Institute, this living portrait of Gowanus prompts us to consider who gets remembered as neighborhoods undergo dramatic change. The project invites local residents to be photographed, mark their photos with the year they arrived or were born in Gowanus, and draw a symbol answering the prompt: “What makes Gowanus Gowanus?”

   A neighborhood’s physical form may be singular, but its meaning is always plural. If the identity of a place is not confined to one interpretation, but instead emerges from a collection of many different perspectives, then a neighborhood’s perceived identity is ultimately shaped by those who experience it. Those experiences accumulate into culture, shaping both how a neighborhood looks and how it is perceived.

   However, a neighborhood’s population is never static. New inhabitants arrive as longtime residents move away, and even those who remain evolve as individuals. The fluidity of a community suggests that the identity of its place is always in the process of redefinition — it is constantly being lost and remade as its people change.

   This tension is acutely visible in Gowanus, Brooklyn, which has been undergoing neighborhood-wide rezoning, rapid development, and canal remediation since 2021. Drawing in new residents and commercial activity, this large-scale urban “revitalization” does more than add buildings — it recomposes the population, and with it, the cultural fabric that has long defined the neighborhood. 

   That transformation is already visible. The opening of Whole Foods along the canal in 2013 — on land that evolved over a century from a historic concrete factory into a gritty automotive scrapyard — became an early symbol of Gowanus’s changing identity. For some, it represented long-awaited investment and environmental cleanup; for others, it foreshadowed the neighborhood’s shift toward a new demographic. Today, as new residential buildings rise along the remediated canal, the physical changes are inseparable from questions about who the neighborhood is being remade for and whether the relationships that have characterized Gowanus can endure. 

   A place’s capacity to foster community is what grounds neighborhood identity. When neighbors know one another – when their shared existence extends beyond proximity into recognition, familiarity, and care – a neighborhood’s identity becomes rooted in community. Collectivity creates unity, and unity creates the cultural coherence needed to characterize a place.

   As neighborhoods grow denser and populations become more transient, maintaining this sense of community becomes increasingly difficult. The faces that once felt familiar grow distant, and everyday interactions become increasingly transactional. In these moments, people begin to inhabit the same place without truly inhabiting it together. When people live in social isolation despite living in close proximity to one another, community-based neighborhood identity can begin to erode.

   This erosion produces a familiar pattern: the inverse relationship between community strength and aesthetic emphasis. When a neighborhood’s interconnectedness begins to unravel, its identity gradually migrates away from its people and onto its surfaces. A neighborhood once known through the relationships it fostered becomes known for its picturesque coffee shops and streetscapes. The emphasis shifts from who experiences a place to what exists within it.

   This tension between lived relationships and visual identity is at the heart of Gowanus Yearbook. Conceived in response to the neighborhood’s ongoing redevelopment, Gowanus Yearbook asks a deceptively simple question: what — and more importantly who — gets remembered? Through photographs of residents and drawn responses to the prompt, “what makes Gowanus Gowanus?,” the project foregrounds individual perspectives rather than presenting a single narrative.

   That emphasis on individuality is embedded in the project’s formal choices. Unlike sentences, which often guide readers toward a specific conclusion, drawings remain inherently open to interpretation. Each unique line and curve acts as a clue revealing — however subtly — the person behind the drawing. Even when multiple residents draw the same place, their pictures differ, making visible the many ways a single neighborhood can be understood. Images inevitably simplify reality by translating it into two dimensions, but they also reveal the complexity behind perspective itself. Together, the photos and drawings that compose Gowanus Yearbook become a collective portrait of the neighborhood, embracing difference while asserting that no single experience can define a place.

   In a moment of rapid change, Gowanus Yearbook reminds us that the neighborhood is defined by its variety of individual perspectives. It works to preserve the memories of the people and places that existed before the changes unfolding today, recognizing that redevelopment alters not only the physical landscape but also the social structure from which neighborhood identity emerges. By documenting individuals and their perspectives, the project holds onto memories that might otherwise disappear beneath new buildings and new populations.

   Gowanus Yearbook doesn’t resolve the tensions it highlights, nor does it stop Gowanus from changing. Instead, through drawings and portraits, it insists that a neighborhood is not its aesthetic, but the accumulated, overlapping, and often irreconcilable experiences of the people who’ve lived there. That insistence, in a city moving as fast as New York, is not a small thing.

   About the Author

   Leeya Rice is an undergraduate student at Wellesley College studying architecture and the humanities. Her interests center on the relationships between the built environment, cultural memory, and public life, with a particular focus on how architecture reflects social and political ideas across different historical and geographic contexts. In addition to her coursework at Wellesley, she participates in architecture and design studios through cross-registration at MIT, works as a research assistant supporting scholarship on modern architecture and liberalism, and recently completed a summer internship at Van Alen Institute.

   Related Projects

   

   Urban Room

   Archive

   Gowanus Yearbook

   A living portrait of Gowanus, including long-time residents and newer arrivals.

   See Project

   

   Urban Room

   Ongoing

   Education Partnerships

   Working with teachers and students through collaborative projects, research, and field trips.

   See Project

4. Happy VanAlentines Day!

   February 14, 2025 10:14 am Comments Off on Happy VanAlentines Day!

   

   It’s our favorite holiday — VanAlentines Day!

    

   We’re taking a moment to acknowledge the care that defines Van Alen’s network of community-led design leaders. Every day, this exceptional network collaborates to reshape NYC’s public realm, making a more just and vibrant city for all.

    

   Over the past year, Van Alen has partnered with 165 designers, community leaders, and built environment professionals on ground-up collaborations. Our community partners are based in 10 neighborhoods, providing essential resources and advocacy for more than one million New Yorkers. And our design partners continue to show up with passion, committing an astounding 2,500 pro bono hours to our community-led public space projects.

    

   Together, our work builds between trust community leaders, designers, and allies; results in public realm activations that inform and engage thousands of residents; and creates transformational change in the way that people come together to co-create shared spaces.

    

   At Van Alen, we feel the love every day. Thank you all for your dedication to turning community vision into reality.

5. Photos + Video: Van Alen Fall Fest 2024

   October 23, 2024 4:46 pm Comments Off on Photos + Video: Van Alen Fall Fest 2024

   We loved seeing you at Fall Fest!

   At Van Alen Fall Fest, we welcomed hundreds of neighbors and visitors for a lively open house held in collaboration with Gowanus Open Studios and Archtober. Among our many visitors was NYC Council Member Shahana Hanif, who honored Van Alen with a special proclamation on the occasion of our 130th anniversary.

   Mookntaka, the Gowanus-based artist duo Mark Zlotsky and Karyn Lao, brightened up our space with their interactive, inflatable sculptures and a kid-friendly pompom art workshop. Later in the day, artist Tiffany Baker collected personal stories of how Gowanus residents have been impacted by and recovered from flood events — which will inform her upcoming project Dear Neighbor, coming in Spring 2025. Dear Neighbor, is the next public art installation in our Points of Promise series, which support civic engagement in Gowanus amidst the neighborhood’s redevelopment.

   We were also joined by organizations working to activate NYC’s public space through art, including ArtBridge, Buro Happold, Center for Justice Innovation – Neighborhood Safety Initiatives, Dancewave, New Project, NYC Department of City Planning, NYC Department of Small Business Services (SBS), Powerhouse Arts, TYLin, and Young New Yorkers. Throughout the day, they shared their expertise in creating a more colorful, welcoming, inclusive public realm.

   Thank you to all who joined us, from longtime Van Alen collaborators to neighbors just passing through. We’re so glad to have seen you there! And big thanks to Four & Twenty Blackbirds, Sigmund’s, and Treelicious Orchards for the seasonal treats.

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

6. Photos: Bond Street Bash 2024

   June 14, 2024 12:36 pm Comments Off on Photos: Bond Street Bash 2024

   Launching the Urban Room with Van Alen’s community

   

   On June 13, 2024, Van Alen Institute held the fourth annual Bond Street Bash, our annual celebration of our partners and community. We were thrilled to officially launch the Urban Room at Van Alen Institute, made possible by former Board Chair Jared Della Valle. The hub of our inclusive design network, within the last year the Urban Room hosted 30+ community meetings, and countless co-design sessions, exhibitions, and celebrations, serving 2000+ attendees with dignity and for no cost.

   During his tenure as Board Chair, Jared Della Valle challenged Van Alen to think bigger and drive our own destiny, resulting in the purchase and design of our home at 303 Bond Street. Thanks to him — and to our powerful network of community leaders, designers, and allied professionals — our doors are open to the curiosity, creativity, and conversations necessary to create a more optimistic future.

   Bond Street Bash event committee
   Hana Kassem, Principal, KPF (chair)
   Asmeret Berhe-Lumax, Founder, One Love Community Fridge
   Alex Hammerschlag, Co-Founder & Principal, Effectus Group
   Carla Swickerath, Partner, Studio Libeskind

   Thank you to Stacy Seebode, Free Range Wine and Spirits, and FDK Florals for your support at this year’s Bash.

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   About the Urban Room

   The Urban Room at Van Alen Institute is a flexible, accessible, street-level space located at 303 Bond Street in Gowanus, Brooklyn. It’s a place for civic-minded organizations to meet and diverse groups to come together in dialogue, and serves as an information hub for the Gowanus community. For values-aligned nonprofits and community groups, Van Alen offers this space and meeting tech on a sliding scale, while private and corporate space rentals support our mission to create more equitable cities through inclusive design.

   Ask about using our space

7. Photos: Bond Street Bash 2022

   May 17, 2022 11:04 am Comments Off on Photos: Bond Street Bash 2022

   Thank you to our Van Alen community

   On May 12, 2022, we welcomed our community to our Gowanus home for this year’s Bond Street Bash. Between catching up with friends and dancing into the evening, we heard from Jing Liu of SO-IL and Leslie Ramos of Jackson Heights’ 82nd Street Partnership about their collaborative design process. As part of Neighborhoods Now, they knocked on doors of small businesses struggling amidst the pandemic and asked: How can we help?

   Jing observed, that’s not how a design process usually begins.

   That’s how it should begin.

   At Van Alen Institute, we design with, not for. Design must be rooted in trust, built with the people it serves. Building trust takes time, and we’re profoundly grateful for the long term commitment of last night’s Neighborhoods Now honorees.

   We’re only as strong as the relationships we have, and that strength was very much in evidence last night. Thank you for inspiring us and powering forward community-led inclusive design every day.

   Check out photos from the evening below! (Click any photo to enlarge.)

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

8. Neighborhoods Now Spotlight: Libreria Barco de Papel

   September 20, 2020 8:58 pm Comments Off on Neighborhoods Now Spotlight: Libreria Barco de Papel

   Introduction

   Libreria Barco de Papel is a nonprofit bookstore and cultural center mere footsteps from the bustling Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, Queens. Founded in 2003, it is now the last Spanish-language bookstore left in New York City and is a beloved cultural hub in the neighborhood. Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Barco de Papel has faced an economic crisis and is currently raising support on GoFundMe.

   While more than 10,000 restaurants in New York City are participating in the city’s Open Restaurants program, there is not a similar program for other types of businesses. As part of Neighborhoods Now, the 82nd Street Partnership working group created a proposal for the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT) to implement street seating for Libreria Barco de Papel. DOT informed them that the city is now exploring avenues for outdoor seating for non-restaurant businesses and to submit an application at a later date. At the time of publication, that application process is not yet in place.

   Launched in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Neighborhoods Now is a collaboration between the Urban Design Forum and Van Alen Institute to channel pro-bono resources from New York-based design firms into community-driven recovery. Emma Silverblatt of SO-IL, one of the participating designers in Neighborhoods Now, recently spoke to Paula Ortiz of Libreria Barco de Papel about the center’s history, role in the community, and challenges in the wake of the pandemic.

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   Interview with Paula Ortiz

   Emma Silverblatt, SO-IL: I understand the bookstore began in 2003. Why did you choose to open it in Jackson Heights? What is your relationship to the area?

   Paula Ortiz, Libreria Barco del Papel: Ramon Caraballo is the founder of the bookstore. The only Spanish-language bookstore [in New York City] was in Manhattan, and many Spanish-speakers living in Queens didn’t have the time to go all the way there. He started by selling books in the street. From there, he got to know the needs of the neighborhood and thought about a children’s bookstore, because many parents were looking for books for their kids to reconnect with their culture and for the folktales that they read.

   There was a need for a program for kids to connect their parents’ roots, so we started doing La Hora del Cuento (Storytelling Hour). Each month, we highlighted stories, artists, festivities, and holidays that were relevant to the Hispanic community. It was all free — what we were doing was to promote the culture. We then started our program La Centro Cultural to connect our community to communities elsewhere. We started with open mics and readings, and then we began hearing from writers in Spain, Belgium, and Mexico, saying, “I have my book, I’m coming to New York, can I present it there?” Because we give opportunities to authors who are not well-known, they have a space to share their knowledge with others. If people can gather here, get to know your work, and access your book for a decent price, that’s what it’s about. This is our humble philosophy.

   Our community started seeing us not just as a business, but as a place where they’re able to connect with their culture, a place where they can meet, a place that people feel is part of their everyday. It’s not just the inventory — although we have an inventory that is unique in the city, because we are the only Spanish bookstore left. It’s the persistence and resilience of our community that makes us stay.

   “Barco del Papel is a hub and venue for people to maintain their roots, to have a place where they can pass their traditions to others. If we have spaces that promote our culture, people will feel connected.”

   ES: How do you engage with the community here in Jackson Heights today?

   PO: Jackson Heights is the most diverse neighborhood in New York City. You can be in so many countries at the same time just by walking in one block — it’s magical to be here.

   [When you come to New York City as an immigrant,] you come here with one goal: to work and to help your families succeed in their country. That can create a sort of individualism, because you need to fight for your own survival. There can be a lack of communication as to how our communities can help each other. We come here to work, but we also bring our culture with us. We bring our food, our stories, our history.

   So Barco del Papel is a hub and venue for people to maintain their roots, to have a place where they can pass their traditions to others. If we have spaces that promote our culture, people will feel connected. That’s the value that any cultural center has. It’s a spot where you can learn about and connect to your past.

   This space is always welcoming for whoever wants to come. We evolve as the community has been evolving. We went from having children’s books to having adult and children’s books; from having only Spanish books, now to having Spanish and English books. The community is growing and parents want their kids to learn a second language. So we have been evolving into a store that is adapting to the needs of the community.

   ES: How can people support you through this time?

   PO: Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, and Corona were among the most hard-hit neighborhoods in New York City by COVID-19. We’re one block away from Elmhurst Hospital, and the pandemic has had a huge impact on our community. We lost a lot of people, a lot of close friends. We’re good at supporting each other, but it’s been a rough road.

   Before the pandemic, all this dust was under the carpet. What the pandemic did was to lift the carpet and expose our social differences — including economic differences, differences in food access, and the lack of access to resources for small, minority-owned businesses. As a small business, we tried to get an SBA loan but didn’t receive one. We encountered a lot of red tape, and many loans went to businesses with more employees. We’re not a big bookstore, so we have to deal with that. Instead, we started a GoFundMe campaign and have gotten a lot of support. People can donate books and we are looking for new inventory software. But the main needs of the store right now are our rent and utilities. Donations — it can be five or ten dollars — can help us a lot.

   We appreciate what Neighborhoods Now is doing for us so much. As immigrants, there are not a lot of people that are going to advocate for us. There’s a preconception and a presumption that immigrants have a lack of ownership or care for their communities. But there are a lot of immigrants doing good in our community, and they need to be supported. We need to make sure they’re getting help, advice, and ideas on how to navigate the pandemic.

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   This interview was adapted from a conversation with Emma Silverblatt, and has been edited for clarity.

9. Van Alen Council: Private Means to Public Ends (Part II)

   December 19, 2019 12:00 am Comments Off on Van Alen Council: Private Means to Public Ends (Part II)

   An epicenter of creativity and change

   According to projections, New York City is set to increase by another 500,000 residents over the next two decades. The impacts of this growth, coupled by shrinking municipal coffers, promise to exacerbate the City’s challenges around aging infrastructure, a severe housing crisis, and income inequality. In response, New York and other global cities are looking for creative ways to leverage private money to meet the needs of their swelling populations.

   From the creation of parks and open space, to the development of entirely new neighborhoods, private interests are shaping our spatial city more than ever before. This reality underscores the importance of balancing private investment with public benefit. What best practices can guide collaboration across the public, private, and design sectors to ensure the most equitable outcomes? This question is at the core of Van Alen’s work helping cities understand what change is needed and how to make it happen.

   The Van Alen Council traveled to London in Spring 2019 to probe this question and foster learning across cities, by examining two case studies: Kings Cross and Olympic Park. Equipped with lessons on London’s approach to benefits and tradeoffs, the Council continued their exploration in New York City in Fall 2019. They focused on Brooklyn as an epicenter of creativity and change—one that Van Alen will be joining when the organization relocates to the borough’s neighborhood of Gowanus in Spring 2020.

   Over the past two decades, the Brooklyn brand has risen to global prominence, as it’s become a driving force behind the innovation economy—a set of industries related to technology, creativity, and new-age manufacturing. This growth has generated immense economic investment and opportunity, contributing to Brooklyn’s dynamism, while also raising the critical question of “who benefits?” that fuels a citywide public debate.

   The Council directed their attention to Downtown Brooklyn and Sunset Park, two neighborhoods that differ dramatically from the master-planned swaths of London that have the advantages of single, large-scale land ownership. Both case studies are hubs of the emerging innovation economy and reflect the complex conditions that underpin Brooklyn’s evolution.

   View the Council’s full itinerary.

   

   

   “A phenomenal shift”

   The central and transit-rich district of Downtown Brooklyn was historically a lively commercial and civic center. Through decades of decline, it was underutilized and seen as prime for revitalization. The City rezoned the area in 2004 with the vision of creating a new, 21st century Central Business District (CBD) that would service the growing borough and greater metropolitan region.

   The surge of investment that followed, successfully stimulated development and generated job growth, making it the city’s third largest CBD. The unplanned proliferation of residential alongside commercial, however, put tremendous pressure on its existing infrastructure. As a relatively new district, Downtown Brooklyn is now finding its footing in balancing future growth with the needs of its new 24-hour, mixed-use community.

   To ground the Council’s work in history, Deborah Schwartz, President of the Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS), gave the group an overview of the borough’s development—noting that Brooklyn’s physical boundaries have changed over time. “Had you been in this very space in the 18th century you would have been in the water,” she said, speaking from BHS’s space in the waterfront neighborhood of Dumbo. “A huge part of New York’s and Brooklyn’s history is about landfill. It’s really important that people understand the evolution of how this city grows and changes.” She added that it’s not just development that’s affecting the coastal boundaries of the borough: “Because of the realities of rising waters, the politics of global warming are a huge part of what’s informing how people build things here.”

   At the Dumbo offices of Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), Winston von Engel, Director of the Department of City Planning’s Brooklyn office, gave the group an overview of New York City’s complex planning and zoning processes, which are starkly different from the master planning approach taken in many of the countries that Council members hail from. He put this in context of New York’s steady rise in population and the subsequent pressure for increased housing and density. “We got to a point in the mid-2000s where we had to ask: Where are these people going to live if we’re not growing upward or outward?”

   He explained that the city developed PlaNYC (since updated to the strategic plan OneNYC), a more comprehensive vision for growth that anticipated a population of nine million people by 2030. The transit system was a key factor in PlaNYC, as the City identified neighborhoods with enough transportation access to support growth. Sitting at the intersection of 13 subway lines and with quick access to Manhattan, Downtown Brooklyn was an obvious focus for new development, especially following its rezoning in the early 2000s.

   In contrast to London or other similar European cities, development in New York does not happen by way of a citywide master plan, a fact that some Council members found bewildering at times. Von Engel acknowledged the difficulty that comes with the complex web of planning in New York, which involves the collaboration of several city agencies and the input of community boards—appointed citizen advisory groups that often have an adversarial relationship with private developers. Increasing density requires “working through and with communities in partnership to come up with plans and visions for their future,” said von Engel. That process of partnership can be met with “somewhat mixed success in terms of the communities’ reception to more people moving in. People want good things, but they may not want things to change.”

   On a walk from BIG’s offices to the Downtown Brooklyn core, the Council heard from Regina Myer, President of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, a non-profit development organization that describes itself as “the local champions for Downtown Brooklyn.” As the group moved from the cobblestone streets of Dumbo to the unmissable cluster of new high-rise buildings in Downtown Brooklyn, Myer put the amount of growth into stark relief. After 15 years of growth since the neighborhood’s rezoning, “There’s been over ten billion dollars’ worth and over 26 million square feet of development, mostly in apartments,” she said. “We are now projecting 50,000 residents in Downtown Brooklyn. We had less than a thousand 15 years ago. This is a phenomenal shift.”

   She acknowledged that there have been surprises along the way—namely, that the development has been far more residential than originally envisioned. “We had a great expectation that many of them would have offices located in the buildings and that was a miscalculation of the market.” The upside, as she sees it, is that Downtown Brooklyn has a multipurpose texture that doesn’t feel like a cluster of offices. “What we’re so excited about is the mix of uses between school, office, and residential. And for the first time Downtown Brooklyn has hotels. There literally was no hotel use in Downtown Brooklyn until about 15 years ago, and now this is a place where many people come to stay when they’re visiting New York City.”

   Looking ahead to the next phase of growth, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership has engaged BIG and architecture firm WXY to imagine a system that will better knit together the neighborhood amidst this massive change and bring a more pedestrian-friendly feeling to the streets. Although their plan is still under development, Kate Cella, Senior Landscape Architect at BIG, shared that the complex intersection of streets and multiple forms of transportation will be addressed. “These multiple grids from different neighborhoods all converge in Downtown Brooklyn and that can disorient you,” she acknowledged. “There’s a lot of congestion and multimodal complexes since it’s a major thoroughfare for subway, buses, cars, pedestrians, cyclists, for everyone.” In response, their plan will prioritize pedestrians, buses, and bike lanes, and propose an increase in public seating areas and greenery.

   During the tour and at a roundtable discussion held in the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s historic Harvey Theater, Council members probed further into New York’s complicated city planning process and questioned how the public’s interest could be honored without an officially appointed entity—like a city architect—dedicated to preserving the city’s character and interests of its residents.

   “You need a singular entity that’s always acting in the public interest to catalyze urban change on a big scale,” observed Daniel Elsea, International Council Co-chair and director at UK-based urban planning firm Allies & Morrison. “[In New York] there isn’t a single entity that can negotiate all those issues into one. There’s a lot of fragmentation.”

   Council member Morten Schmidt, founding partner of Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects, added that this fragmentation can put the unique architectural character of a neighborhood at risk. “The materiality of Brooklyn’s historical buildings is beautiful, rendered in brick and brownstone. But when you look around, these new buildings are just glass and aluminum. They don’t have that materiality. They are like all the other buildings you find across North America, China, Australia—all over. If you were dropped here, you wouldn’t be able to tell where you are.”

   Because many of Downtown Brooklyn’s new high-rises are largely market rate and luxury housing, the Council also discussed how this growth would affect long-term stability in New York. They observed how similar growth has happened in other global centers such as London and Paris, resulting in an increasingly expensive urban core with lower income residents being pushed toward the edges of the city. “You either pay people enough money to compete in the housing market, or you subsidize the production of housing,” a Council member asserted during the discussion. “And if you don’t do either of those things, which we don’t, then you’re going to end up with a housing crisis.”

   

   

   “It’s about whose vision is starting the conversation”

   The challenge of maintaining New York City’s competitive edge, while ensuring equitable development is also playing out in the South Brooklyn neighborhood of Sunset Park. This long standing immigrant neighborhood is closely linked to the history of manufacturing along its wateront, which provided jobs to much of the upland community.

   As the post-industrial shoreline has undergone a renaissance, commercial pressures in Sunset Park have intensified in recent years. Industry City is a privately-owned campus and anchor tenant of the evolving waterfront that has come to represent the new-age innovation economy accused of supplanting traditional manufacturing and spurring wider neighborhood change. This 19th-century complex of warehouses that spans 35-acre has been transformed into a hub for light manufacturing, commerce, and special events.

   In the face of a rezoning request by Industry City to introduce hotel and big-box retail to the complex, a fiery debate has unfolded about whether to resist the request outright or leverage private development in order to achieve community benefits.

   The Council started the day with a tour of upland Sunset Park, the residential area that grew out of the nearby waterfront industry and has long been home to New York’s many waves of immigrant families. Melissa Del Valle Ortiz, Community & Housing Coordinator for Congresswoman Nydia M. Velazquez, pointed out a new mixed-use building that had replaced a residential brownstone, and shared that even small-scale change in character like this can cause community tension in a lower income neighborhood facing rising housing costs.

   Later in the day, the Council engaged in a lively discussion with New York City Councilmember Carlos Menchaca, whose district includes Sunset Park and has been a central figure in the debate around Industry City’s proposed rezoning. Much of the conversation centered around the challenging, often adversarial relationship between communities and private developers. “The community often gets blinded by the power, resources, and time that developers have,” said Menchaca. “Starting with ‘no’ sends a clear message that the burden is on the developer to get to ‘yes.’ It doesn’t feel good as a developer and maybe that’s the point.”

   Renae Widdison, District 38’s Director of Land Use and Planning, added, “It’s about whose vision is starting the conversation. Especially in communities where people are housing insecure and feel constantly excluded from government and everything else, the conversation has to start somewhere different.” She posed a scenario in which private developers approach community members with an open question about what they need and where their mutual benefits intersect. “That’s really different than a developer coming with a very baked plan with fancy renderings and very expensive lawyers, planners, and designers, saying ‘I think that this would be excellent for you.’”

   Both Menchaca and Widdison echoed the Council’s concerns about the lack of a larger master plan for development in New York. “We are in a status quo that is void of a comprehensive plan.” said Menchaca. “These piecemeal strategies just don’t work.”

   Mulling over the conversation, Carmen Pereira, Associate Partner at international design practice Mecanoo, compared her learnings to her experience in the Netherlands. “Designing a process that adequately can bring all these different ideas, voices, and objectives together is a much bigger thing. It goes to the heart of people’s views of the democratic process and the idea of the individual versus the collective. What I see here in the U.S. or in New York is that the idea of the individual is a very powerful thing, but the idea of the collective is somewhat diminished.”

   She continued, “There’s no perfect system. But [in the Netherlands] things are considered in a much larger totality. There’s definitely a lot of possibility for engagement in that process. The collective is considered more important than the individual.”

   Monica von Schmalensee, International Council Co-chair and CEO of Swedish firm White Arkitekter, also considered the delicate balance between growth and community needs. “How do you create social value and economic value, but also a long-term vision?” she pondered. “These discussions about how cities evolve—whether through planning, negotiation, or just that big deal—have been an eye-opener. How can architects and planners help those processes go forward while really helping local communities? The field needs to put these questions higher up on the agenda.”

   

   

   “It’s good to come back down to earth”

   Concurrently with the Council’s trip to Brooklyn, Van Alen hosted a 2019 Regional Session of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design (MICD). During this session, civic leaders from small U.S. cities and group of global design professionals convened to discuss approaches to city-making at all scales.

   As a special capstone to the week, Van Alen brought together some of the participating mayors with the Council for an ideas exchange. The day before, the Council gathered at the Center for Architecture for a fast-paced design charrette addressing specific challenges in each mayor’s home city: Maricopa, AZ; Capitol Heights, MD; Union City, GA; and West Hollywood, CA. The ideas were then presented to the mayors—not as formal recommendations, but as a starting point for conversations between leaders in citymaking and design.

   Shawn Maldon, Mayor of Capitol Heights, MD, expressed his hope to find ways to improve public health and encourage more community engagement in his city’s downtown revitalization process. He was excited to see the Council’s proposal to convert a large portion of the city’s downtown into a public park, and imagined that a new vision of a park could really engage citizens in the planning process. “We as mayors have these big visions of how we’d like to see things happen,” he reflected. “But sometimes it’s good to come back down to earth and have some real hands on kind of help to make it happen.”

   Christian Price, Mayor of Maricopa, GA, brought several challenges to the table. As a city that’s skyrocketed from a population of 1,200 to 54,000 since 2000, he’s faced with finding developers willing to create new amenities from the ground up, while also finding ways to enable more outdoor activity in Arizona’s hot climate. The Council took a long term view for this challenge and recommended investing in public park space, which would provide shady green areas, create a more intentionally-planned sense of place, and serve as appealing new assets for potential developers.

   Following the presentation, Mayor Price expressed a new appreciation for design thinking and an eagerness to bring his learnings back to his city. “I’ve been educated, now how do I educate?” he asked. “We need to create a fire and that fire’s going to come by educating my city manager, my upper echelon of city staff. Having a design team that we can pull locally into that philosophy might be really interesting.”

   Deborah Marton, Van Alen’s executive director, echoed this sentiment in her closing remarks to the mayors. “There’s extraordinary generosity among designers. Designers want to put their minds to real world problems. If you find people in your local communities who think the way you do, they will raise their hands and help build the cities that you want to see for the long term.”

   “We need to take some big leaps”

   While the trip provided the International Council with a bevy of answers about the ins and outs of Brooklyn’s development, Council members often found themselves wrestling with questions at the highest level, especially around the intersection of social and environmental issues. “We started our conversation around equity and quality of life, but somewhat vaguely,” said Monica von Schmalensee. “But over time, we’ve been able to dig more into the big questions ahead of us. How do cities grow, and for whom? And what does it mean to make cities more equitable?”

   “It’s important that we bring more of the climate discussion into social discussions,” added Carl Backstrand, Partner & Vice President, White Arkitekter. “We really need to address them together in order to shape the future.”

   Other participants found inspiration in the potential for private-public collaborations, but reinforced the need for more cross-city dialogue, interdisciplinary learning, and inclusive conversations about the future of urban design. “I had a very different understanding of private developers roles in cities,” one Council member noted. “I was leaning more towards the negative side of things. One of my takeaways is actually under the right circumstances, [private development] can be used to generate positive things for cities and placemaking—in partnership with governance and other voices.”

   “There’s still a lot of work to be done in bridging the gap between the [design] industry and city governance,” observed Lucie Murray, Programme Director of New London Architecture, the International Council’s partner organization during their London expedition. “There’s so much talent to pull upon, but we need to get the right people in the room to have a conversation about the solutions—and to have the confidence to take some big leaps.”

   Attendees

   

   Network

   Daniel Elsea

   Director, Allies and Morrison

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10. Van Alen Council: Private Means to Public Ends (Part I)

    September 20, 2019 2:54 pm Comments Off on Van Alen Council: Private Means to Public Ends (Part I)

    Intro

    As global cities look for creative ways to keep pace with unprecedented growth, they are increasingly turning to private development to deliver on a host of public assets, from housing and open space to full-scale neighborhood regeneration.

    In New York City, recent contention around the opening of Hudson Yards thrust the topic of private sector investment in city-making to the forefront of public debate. The new $25 billion development—the largest private real estate project in the country—attracted both acclaim and criticism. Some hail the complex of restaurants, shopping mall, offices and apartments as New York’s greatest new neighborhood and a wellspring of new tax revenue for the city. Its critics have labelled the project a soulless playground for visitors and the wealthy that offers nothing for the majority of New Yorkers.

    So how do we reconcile this trend towards privatization with the goal of fostering inclusive growth in cities? What are the ways that the public, private, and design sectors can work together more effectively to ensure that the outcomes are areas of the city that serve the diverse needs of urban residents?

    To furnish lessons for the future, the Van Alen International Council looked to London as a city in which private money has long had a significant role in shaping the city. London’s Great Estates, established largely in the 16^th, 17^th, and 18^th centuries, remain in private ownership today and, through their stewardship, continue to strongly influence the capital’s streetscape.

    The Council’s exploration of the private sector role’s in city-making, focused on two developments that are essentially modern iterations of the Great Estates: King’s Cross and the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. While each is singular in its history, context and design, both regeneration projects aimed to spur private investment in underutilized land to create new, economically viable pieces of city that would cater to a diverse urban populace.

    To fully understand the historical precedents to these projects, the Council first visited the Bedford Estate, a 350-year-old Great Estate, to gain insight into the strategies around investment, placemaking, regeneration, and management that allow for long-term, large-scale private landowners to shape and re-shape areas over time. They then moved onto Somers Town, a historically lower-working class and ethnically diverse population that has undergone significant change in large part due to the regeneration of neighboring King’s Cross. The next day brought them to University College London’s Bartlett Real Estate Institute and the East London areas of Hackney Wick, Fish Island and Sugarhouse Island, which are adjacent to the Olympic Park and within the area of regeneration.

    Other activities included a site visit to Heatherwick Studios, the firm behind Google’s new offices being built in King’s Cross, and presentations from Urbik founder Lee Mallett and UCL anthropologist Nitasha Kapoor on King’s Cross, and Ricky Burdett, professor of urban studies at LSE and director of the Urban Age and LSE Cities Burdett.

    

    

    London’s evolution

    Professor Burdett outlined the economic, political and social forces that have influenced London’s evolution, drawing comparisons to its purported North American counterpart of New York. London is a low-density, green city with the capacity for intensification. It is encircled by the green belt, an area of countryside designed to prevent urban sprawl. This marked perimeter also enables the city to be developed in a complex and intense way.

    New York has five boroughs and the decision-making lies with the state; London has 32 boroughs, plus the City of London, and the Mayor of London holds most of the power. He is chair of Transport for London, responsible for inward investment and housing, and in charge of the London Plan, the statutory strategy that sets out an economic, environmental, transport and social framework for development.

    While New York has as-of-right development, London planning is much more prescriptive. Private development, such as King’s Cross, operates within a regulatory framework that may appear restrictive but provides a clear roadmap for projects across the public and private sectors.

    The current objective is to increase density in the City of London, hence the proliferation of taller buildings, and to regenerate London’s outer boroughs by providing better services. Some of this public sector work is subsidized by private developers, such as the extension of London Underground’s Northern Line in Battersea.

    

    

    Case study: King’s Cross

    King’s Cross is a mixed-use urban regeneration project in north London that includes retail, commercial, housing and education. It is located on a 67-acre site of former rail and industrial facilities, bordered by the housing estates that served as homes for the industrial workforce and a protective barrier between wealthy classes and the noxious site. The redevelopment has created a destination in an area that many Londoners previously avoided and it has opened up what was once private land for public use. It encompasses a mix of restored historic buildings, new construction, and interspersed public amenities and spaces. Having opened in 2011, the redevelopment is due to be fully completed by 2020.

    Several plans for redevelopment came and went until 2008, when the private developer Argent formed a joined venture with London & Continental Railways and DHL – the King’s Cross Central Ltd Partnership – to become the single landowner. In 2015, the UK government and DHL sold their interests to Australian Super, Australia’s biggest pension fund.

    During a tour of the area, Bob Allies of Allies and Morrison, the site’s master planner, said the aim was to create simple urban streets. Although the planners were not keen, Allies and Morrison maintained tight spaces between buildings to produce an atmosphere that is lacking from some of the other new London developments. While it was important that each of the new buildings had an urban identity, Allies and Morrison did not issue architects with prescriptive design guidelines, and instead placed the emphasis on what each building contributed to the new district as a whole.

    To serve the residential community, a new primary school and, King’s Cross Academy, a school for deaf children, were built in the heart of the development and are co-located on two floors of 14-story residential building. To sustain their operation, The King’s Cross Central Limited Partnership formed a trust to sponsor the academy.

    For public uses, Granary Square constitutes the heart of King’s Cross, its large open space bordered by a restored granary building and Regent’s Canal. The granary building houses the University of Arts London (UAL) and the public/private spaces within the building mirror the nature of the larger development. UAL was intentionally made the first tenant at King’s Cross and the 4,000 students and 1,000 staff enhanced the area’s vibrancy from the project’s inception.

    Other public amenities include a public swimming pool, library and gym. The local authority, Camden Borough Council, also found new offices within the King’s Cross development.

    Adjacent to the popular Granary Square is the newly-opened retail core of King’s Cross, Coal Drops Yard, designed by Heatherwick Studios. New, curving roofs converging at a narrow end have enhanced the relationship between the original coal buildings, but at ground level, the distance between the two sides has been critiqued as unsettlingly wide. The aim was that Coal Drops Yard would feature independent shops, and yet it is home largely to high-end designers with expensive wares, available only to a certain economic echelon.

    So does the regeneration deliver benefits for local people?

    According to Lee Mallet of consultancy Urbik, Argent’s approach from the outset has been fundamental to King’s Cross’s success. Rather than reach for pencil and paper immediately, the developer explored the principles that should drive the urban approach and the architecture. The resulting 10 principles drove the development.

    Another key strategy in the area’s regeneration was placing education facilities at its very core, which helped to enliven the area and bring in a new set of users. This in turn drove up the value of the surrounding mixed-use development, a model that was adopted in the case of Olympic Park as well.

    University College London anthropologist Nitasha Kapoor, who undertook an anthropological study of King’s Cross for The Developer magazine, noted that the idea of King’s Cross being a destination raised the question of what was happening on its periphery. As the Council made its way through the district, she pointed out the stark contrast between the safe, quiet, and insular enclosure of the development and the windy, noisy, and in some sense, forgotten environment on the perimeter just 50 yards away. This is the original neighborhood, and the second most deprived ward in the Borough of Islington, with a typical London parade of shops—a café, launderette, convenience store, and kebab shop. During construction of the eight-story residential block that marks King Cross’s eastern perimeter, these local businesses benefited from the development; now that it is completed, it creates a high and long barrier between the two areas, leaving the original community spatially isolated. Some UAL students complain they cannot afford to buy anything on the King’s Cross site, even though these local shops, just a few minutes’ walk away, provide affordable goods. Despite being part of everyday life for people who live to the east of the development, these shops are still relatively inaccessible from within King’s Cross.

    The signage at King’s Cross was prominent but it all pointed into the new complex, and the existing community had suffered from the development’s inward-looking stance.

    The local authority could address this separation, said Kapoor, by encouraging spaces that people from all socioeconomic groups use.

    

    

    Case study: Queen Elizabeth Olympic Party

    When London bid for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, at the heart of its case was the ambitious promise of a lasting “legacy” of investment and regeneration of one of the city’s most impoverished areas. London was adamant it would not repeat the failures of other Games, which have created large and expensive white elephants, but would instead develop its Olympic grounds in a way that it could be adapted into a functioning, sustainable part of London. The goal was to transform a post-industrial landscape into a thriving area, while preserving local heritage.

    The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, as it’s now known, was built on a former industrial brownfield site in East London’s city fringe and straddles four boroughs. The land was bought by the public sector and the 278 businesses and three traveller sites established in the area were relocated or compensated.

    Following the Games, the area was handed over to the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), a mayoral development corporation accountable to the Mayor and responsible for delivering the physical legacy through long-term planning, development, management and maintenance of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and its surrounding area. In this sense, the LLDC functions as planning and regeneration agency not only for the park, but also the neighboring districts of Hackney Wick, Fish Island, Bromley-by-Bow, Sugarhouse Island, Carpenters Estate and Westfield Stratford City.

    Eleanor Fawcett, Design for London’s former head of design for Olympic legacy and LLDC’s former head of design and physical regeneration, explained that London’s Great Estates, with their sense of long-term stewardship, served as a model for the Olympic Park.

    The regeneration was spurring the creation of an entirely new district, so the LLDC developed two strategies for knitting the park into the surrounding area. First, a new 26-mile green spine opened access to waterways, including the River Lea and the Thames. Next, it was recognized that four town centers—Stratford, Leyton, Hackney Wick, and Bromley-by-Bow—needed new faces looking into the park.

    In planning the park, the City focused on five tactics for ensuring that the outcomes would yield positive results for the new and existing communities:

    1. Value people, places and activities that are there
    Rather than create a generic city, the design team wanted to retain the special qualities of the Lea Valley. It is an area with an openness and a sense of people being able to claim their territory.

    2. Planning with plans
    Working with the four boroughs, the team established key proposals that became the roadmap for the development. There was a strong emphasis on connectivity with the existing community, because unless it was explicitly drawn, it was unlikely that private developers would incorporate these essential points of connection.

    3. Parks, bridges, stations, streets and public places in the right place at the right time
    The existing infrastructure provided poor access, so there was emphasis on rebuilding and improving the stations. The 26-mile connection from the Lea Valley to the Thames also connected six new parks with a continuous route and created a regional resource.

    4. Reinventing the town centers
    The new town centers for Stratford, Leyton and Hackney Wick were planned by the city and adopted by the landowners, but the approach did not work for Bromley-by-Bow. The project was finally unlocked when all five landowners developed a joint master plan.

    5. Get on with it and make real things happen
    It was feared that the extensive planning would adversely affect the project by protracting its completion. All the public sector organizations worked together to deliver a series of projects under the Olympic Fringe Programme. With a £100 million purse and, again, a focus on connectivity, the program provided amenities for local communities, such as sports facilities on Hackney Marshes; working with businesses in Leyton to prepare them for the Olympic Games and create a sense of pride and local identity; and the canal-side White Building, which offers space to local artists.

    From the outset, the legacy promise was a thread that ran through the planning of the Olympic Park. The permanent sports venues and parklands are clustered in the center of the space while new developments, such as schools, are on the edges to connect outwards to existing communities.

    The former broadcast and press buildings, which sit adjacent to the neighborhood of Hackney Wick, home to the largest concentration of creatives in Europe, is now a digital and start-up hub operated by University College London called Here East. In the center of the park is East Bank, a culture and education center that will house new, expanded venues for Sadler’s Wells, the V&A and the BBC, and campuses for UCL and the London College of Fashion. At the edges of the park, five new neighborhoods are being built by private companies, providing 10,000 homes, 50% of which are affordable housing. Many of the new homes have three bedrooms or more, to encourage families to settle and create communities.

    The residents in the new neighborhoods pay an annual fee and once all the housing is complete, the receipts will fund maintenance of the park in perpetuity, alleviating the need for public finance.

    Council reactions and lessons for the future

    On the third and final day, the International Council convened with Van Alen programming partner New London Architecture for a workshop facilitated by Paul Finch of Architectural Record. Joined by a range of key London players from across the public, private, and design sectors, the Council drew upon the learnings and observations of the previous two days with the goal of deriving best practices to help inform the next generation of private development in London and beyond.

    The Council members found much to praise, as well as room for considerable improvement. They presented their ideas to a panel of experts including Daniel Moylan, Urban Design London co-chairman, former deputy chairman of Transport for London, and former chairman of the LLDC; Peter Bishop, Professor of Urban Design at UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture and local authority planning director for King’s Cross; and Alison Brooks, principal and creative director at Alison Brooks Architects, which designed a residential scheme at King’s Cross.

    Team One

    COUNCIL:
    Carl Bäckstrand | Partner & Vice President, White Arkitekter (Co-Chair)
    Niklas Carlen | Office Manager Stockholm, Wingardhs
    Karen Frome | Founding Partner, Rise Projects
    Alan Maskinz | Principal / Owner Olson Kundig Architects
    Erika Escalante | Director of Interiors & Comms, Studio Saxe
    Daniel Maldonado | Senior Vice President, Skanska (Board Member)

    LONDON LOCALS:
    Lara Kinneir | Director, New London Architecture
    Tim Rettler | Principal Project Manager Regeneration, Greater London Authority

    Team One’s central critique was the fact that both projects lacked connection with the surrounding neighborhoods, emphasized by physical boundaries: At King’s Cross, a large building separates the development from the existing neighborhood, while on the Olympic Park, a canal divides the park from Hackney Wick and Fish Island to the east. Citing the role of community boards in the US, they suggested it might be the role of government to ensure boundaries were more flexible and designs more inclusive.

    They also noted a generic quality to the development, part of a global trend of place without placement. To encourage developers to opt for more than a standard design, they suggested the industry needed to quantify design value.

    The group also felt that the impacts of climate change were not sufficiently addressed at either site.

    The group came up with 10 considerations to inform future development:

    1. The human scale: What building heights are people comfortable walking through?
    2. Signage: Provide information about where you are and where you’re going
    3. Location: Where is the nearest grocery store?
    4. Interdisciplinary approach
    5. Early community involvement: Consult people who have already done work in the area, such as anthropologists
    6. Design value and design leadership
    7. Material selection based on circular economy
    8. Location specific design: Use materials appropriate for the area and the climate
    9. Co-living/co-working/co-playing: How is that mixed into the development?
    10. Ecosystem service

    In response, Peter Bishop noted that he did not recognize the group’s view of King’s Cross. The site had difficult physical barriers, such as high-speed rail and many tunnels, which were insurmountable. From the outset, he said, the government’s aim was to produce a scheme that addressed the social disadvantage of the surrounding area and was inclusive in its approach. The location of amenities, such as the school and swimming pool, was vital to attracting people into the development.

    The plan was based on a traditional London typology that dated back to the Great Estates and, apart from two housing blocks, no building exceeded 12 stories. Allies and Morrison’s flexible master plan allowed individual buildings to be replaced over time.

    Bishop said King’s Cross tried to balance the need for a private developer to make a return on investment by embedding strong social benefits in the development.

    Alison Brooks highlighted the fact that many developments lacked the nuances of good places because developers did not want the complexity of building and managing schools or swimming pools, but that King’s Cross had managed to achieve this.

    Daniel Moylan posed a series of questions for architects. Any large-scale industrial site would have barriers, so what’s the solution? Drawn up more than 10 years ago, the King’s Cross and Olympic Park master plans don’t take account of climate change —are master planning and the planning system too inflexible to respond to today’s issues? The challenge for architects, he said, was to refresh the master plan and planning permission.

    TEAM TWO

    COUNCIL:
    Nick Taylor | Director, Squint/Opera
    Katrin Binder | Project Manager, Henning Larsen
    Jonas Edblad | Office Manager Göteborg, Wingardhs
    Monica von Schmalensee | CEO, White Arkitekter (Co-Chair)
    Denzil Gallagher | Partner, BuroHappold Engineering
    Nat Oppenheimer | Senior Principal, Silman
    Susanna Sirefman | Founder and President, Dovetail Design Strategists
    Carla Swickerath | Partner, Studio Libeskind

    LONDON LOCALS:
    Jonathan Leah | Principal and Sector Leader for Education in Europe, Woods Bagot
    Sowmya Parthasarathy | Urban Design Leader, Integrated City Planning, Arup

    Team Two analyzed the two projects against five dominant themes.

    1. Center vs. edges
    The group found that some edges of King’s Cross and the Olympic Park were potentially hostile because the developments had not considered the link between the old and the new and the heart had been developed at the expense of the perimeters. At King’s Cross, in particular, all signage pointed inwards, directing people away from the older neighborhoods and their amenities.

    The group recommended focusing harder on the perimeter and respecting the larger community. Planning regulation may be needed to encourage this.

    2. Mix it up
    King’s Cross was successful in mixing the old and the new, but the group found a lack of demographic diversity at the Olympic Park. They recommended flexibility in the master plan to allow a rich programmatic mix and for developers and architects to consider how to encourage a greater social mix and a better live/work mix.

    3. Nature vs. nurture
    In the Olympic Park, in particular, there were areas that felt bereft of energy while others were over energetic. This could be mitigated through a better balance of the planned and the unplanned, encouraging people into the park rather than presenting a perfectly programmed space.

    The group recommended flexible planning and collaboration throughout the life of the development rather than just at the beginning. This could take the form of community governance, which would provide a richer and more collaborative approach.

    4. Macro vs. micro
    The group recognized the importance of architects and developers looking beyond the red line to how the site linked with the surrounding area. While there are limits to what individual architects can do outside the red line, the industry as a whole can exert influence on governments to ensure better connections between neighborhoods.

    To avoid large developments being sterile, a rich mix of partnerships is required, not just in the project team but with communities.

    5. Human and planetary health
    Architects and developers must think about working differently to ensure human and planetary health. Sustainability is now a given but it needed to be addressed at the start of a project and the UN Sustainable Development Goals could be used as the framework.

    In response, Alison Brooks said the divide between living and working was out of date. Even housing as housing was obsolete, as every home was a potential business as more people worked from home or created start-ups in their living rooms. Foyers could become co-working and meeting spaces, with the added benefit of introducing activity and diversity to the streetscape. The property industry did not recognize the trend, however, because it created complexity.

    Daniel Moylan said it was not planning, but a building’s adaptability that enabled mixed use. He questioned whether some large sites with their single-use big blocks had the flexibility to be adapted.

    Peter Bishop advocated that it was planning’s role to engage developers and architects in a contextual debate. Planning needed to think propositionally and force a debate so developers thought more about the context and not just the red line.

    TEAM THREE

    COUNCIL:
    Gabriela Frank | Director of Business Development and Marketing, Olson Kundig Architects
    Jan Bunge | Managing Director, Squint Opera
    Daniel Elsea | Director and Head of Communications, Allies and Morrison (Co-Chair)
    Mark Johnson | President, Civitas (Board Member and Climate Council Co-Chair)

    LOCAL LEADERS:
    Paul Karakusevic | Partner, Karakusevic Carson Architects
    Gerard Maccreanor | Founding Director, Maccreanor Lavington Architects
    Manisha Patel | Senior Partner, PRP
    Dr. Bridget Snaith | Senior Lecturer landscape architecture, University of East London
    Tomas Stokke | Director, Haptic Architects

    Team Three’s first focus was on finance. Long-term ownership achieves long-term benefit and in the case of King’s Cross, the private investment with its patient money and patient intention has produced a high level of benefit.

    In contrast, the public investment in the Olympic Park was hot money as it had to be spent in a short period of time to deliver the Games venues and the LLDC was now having to ‘backfill’ to create a long-term benefit.

    The two sites were typical of brownfield industrial areas: interstitial spaces that were voids in a city, but also highly connected because of their industrial past. The Olympic Park was regionally connected but locally disconnected. The group identified the River Lea—the reason the Olympic Park was originally developed as an industrial zone—as the means to restoring connectivity.

    The short time scale to deliver the Olympics and the development meant the park lacked the fine grain of an evolving city, but the gap between the east and the west was starting to ease and the East Bank culture and education sector would bring further change.

    King’s Cross was smaller parcels of land in a void and active part of London with a rich industrial heritage. It was, the group found, simply good real estate. This project involved stitching pieces together rather than building big infrastructure and the creation of a strong public realm made it resilient and adaptable.

    In terms of inclusivity, health, well-being, and affordability, neither project was perfect. The Olympic Park and some surrounding areas were socially inclusive with good public amenities. South Park catered for multi-generations, while the housing in Chobham Manor and Sugarhouse Island was targeting the middle class. In the west, however, the group felt Hackney Wick was disconnected from the park and the fine grain of Fish Island had been missed as it was trying to be brought into the Olympic Park.

    In contrast, King’s Cross had a rich character with exemplary public spaces and an interesting mix of uses. They noted that it would be hard to think of another urban development where the Aga Khan and Google were neighbors.

    Critical to both projects was that they were places made for Londoners and they seemed to support Londoners. This contrasted with New York’s High Line and Hudson Yards, which were built for visitors.

    Daniel Moylan said the housing development appealing to the middle class was a deliberate decision by the then-mayor of Newham. Most of the park lies in the Borough of Newham, dominated by social housing, so the mayor wanted to attract middle class people to the area.

    In terms of finance, Peter Bishop highlighted the difference between the private scheme of King’s Cross, which held its nerve, and the public sector Olympic Park, which bottled it. King’s Cross was a quasi-public/private client that engaged a developer as a partner while the public sector mediated and represented the public good. In contrast, at the Olympic Park, the public sector drew up a master plan without having its finger on the pulse of the market.

    TEAM FOUR

    COUNCIL:
    Alfredo Caraballo | Partner, Allies and Morrison (Co-Chair)
    Kevin Kudo-King | Principal / Owner, Olson Kundig Architects
    Benjamin Garcia Saxe | Executive Director, Studio Saxe
    Jared Della Vale | CEO & Founder, Alloy Development

    LONDON LOCALS:
    Madeleine Kessler | Associate Architect, Haptic Architects
    Craig Miller | Partner, Heatherwick
    Alen Penn | Professor in Architectural and Urban Computing, Dean of Faculty, The Bartlett

    Team Four considered governance, time, value, and people.

    In terms of governance, the private sector, public sector and community needed to work together to create the sense of place. The problem with public sector decisions was time, as they could be casualties of the five-year political cycle; whereas the private sector’s long-term vision for King’s Cross was part of the project’s success.

    Like Team One, Team Four identified the need to measure value beyond purely the financial.

    One of those intangibles was people and diversity. As it was hard to put a value number on diversity, the group felt there might be a role for regulation and planning to achieve a greater mix in communities. Historically, London was most successful where it had mixed communities; developments aimed at particular groups or financially attractive markets were creating challenges for the future.

    Daniel Moylan believed both projects were backed by positive investors. At the Olympic Park, Here East was on a 99-year lease and the investment arm of Qatar’s ruling family now owned East Village, the former athletes’ village. Likewise, King’s Cross had very patient capital behind it.

    Overall, while Council members had some reservations about the two projects, they recognized that both King’s Cross and the Olympic Park were still relative newborns and that, as with London’s centuries-old Great Estates, time would add maturity, layers and granularity.

    Attendees

    

    Network

    Daniel Elsea

    Director, Allies and Morrison

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