Public Space Invitational

M

Matthew

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 3, 2012
Messages
3,583
Reaction score
6
http://space.newurbanmechanics.org/

In Boston, a third of the land is open to the public. We invite you to reimagine that space. How can our streets, plazas, sidewalks, street furniture, and public buildings better serve people?
The Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics Streetscape Lab is sourcing ideas from designers, makers, artists, and engineers to improve Boston. We are asking members of our vibrant creative community to submit project ideas to make our public spaces simple, intuitive, and literally awesome. Project ideas can be entirely new creations or a new way of using an existing product. The City will review the submissions and may select up to six ideas total to implement
Click to expand...

What do you think?
 
Yeah, I'm thinking about some sneckdown inspired plazas.
 
Has the sneckdown idea been around awhile? I only heard of it today.
 
I don't like this sneckdown craze at all. It makes no logical sense. So you mean to tell me, if a part of a road hasn't been plowed, then that part of road is no longer needed? Okay. And what about a sidewalk that's gone unshoveled? Presumably that sidewalk isn't needed and should therefore revert to cars?

The whole thing may be good for drawing attention to the deficiencies of certain intersections, but it isn't the kind of great big hairy idea that's going to change the prevailing conversation in this country.
 
Shepard said:
I don't like this sneckdown craze at all. It makes no logical sense. So you mean to tell me, if a part of a road hasn't been plowed, then that part of road is no longer needed? Okay. And what about a sidewalk that's gone unshoveled? Presumably that sidewalk isn't needed and should therefore revert to cars?

The whole thing may be good for drawing attention to the deficiencies of certain intersections, but it isn't the kind of great big hairy idea that's going to change the prevailing conversation in this country.
Click to expand...

It's not that the areas of the road are un-plowed, it's that over the course of the couple of days after a storm, with normal traffic wearing away at the snow on the ground, what you're left with is essentially space that is not needed for the roadway. Overall, this is a good starting point and gives a quick glance of intersections that can be better utilized by people vs. autos. One major consideration however, is the space needed to maneuver large vehicle, as the off-tracking of buses, straight trucks, and tractor trailers is much greater than any car. Identify the locations that aren't utilized by autos, and don't need to be utilized by larger vehicles and you'll find some good candidates for new public spaces.
 
It's a response to the overengineering of roadways. They were made far too wide, with far too much asphalt in the past. It was particularly bad in the 70s, if you look at old video/pictures of many intersections, they're basically just all asphalt with tiny islands for pedestrians.

The sneckdown is a coincidental way of showing just how much narrowing could be done with little impact. Of course you need to account for larger vehicles, too, but I think it's quite safe to say that there's many spots which are asphalt out of sheer disregard on the part of traffic engineers.

I think it came out of NYC in particular because that city has mega-over-sized roadways and a fairly consistent style, so the sneckdowns really stand out.
 
Anyway, back to the invitational:

Submissions should be in the $1000 - $4,500 range for construction and implementation and include a proposed budget.
Click to expand...

Also known as

We're not really going to make any real investment in improving public spaces
Click to expand...

Seriously, that amount of money can pay for what... a park bench o two?
 
The info meeting was curious. I get the feeling that they are looking for something like a piece of usable art.

They highlighted two projects: the "heart" that plays music to your heartbeat and the solar-powered cell-phone-charging bench. Both fit into their budget, they claim.
 
Is the city covering the cost of labor for construction/installation? If not I can see that $1,000-$4,500 budget per project being quite low.
 
So it's not exactly a public space invitational as much as it is a public gimmick invitational.
 
Nope, it's "soup to nuts" for $4500.

Yeah, public gimmick.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top