Media contact: Sarah Haun, shaun@vanalen.org, 212 924 7000 x12
Respected 125-year-old design organization initiating citywide conversation about Long Island City and the relationship between urban design and development and citizens’ priorities
New York, N.Y.—Van Alen Institute today announced the launch of LICNYC: Site City Future and its investigation of inclusive growth strategies in cities.
LICNYC: Site City Future is a series of public engagement programs spurred by the heated debates of the past few months around Amazon’s proposed–and then abandoned—plan to build its HQ2 in Long Island City (LIC), a rapidly developing neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens.
LICNYC: Site City Future asks, with HQ2 canceled, what’s next? How can the city plan for livability while competing in a global economy? In what ways can design support the essential values that make New York a great city?
Well before Amazon proposed its 14-acre campus on the Queens waterfront, Long Island City was the fastest growing neighborhood in the country. This rapid growth has positively impacted street life, commercial activity, and local cultural institutions, but has also driven up housing prices and strained the capacity of local schools and public transit. HQ2 quickly became a proxy for the relationship between new development and citizen’s priorities, and while HQ2 is no longer on New York’s horizon, LIC will continue to grow.
LICNYC: Site City Future will explore the impacts of future development on both the city’s physical character and the well-being of citizens through three lenses:
The Site: Connection to Place
What is the potential impact of private development on Anable Basin, from the noise and sensory experiences to the influx of pedestrians on local streets? How can creative design and planning policy serve the new and old residents of LIC, especially Queensbridge Houses, the largest public housing development in the Western Hemisphere? In the midst of rapid gentrification, how can we build and maintain social connections between neighborhoods?
Program participants will explore Long Island City and Anable Basin, an artificial inlet of the East River that extends the area’s waterfront, alongside experts in urbanism, urban development and design. While learning about the history and character of LIC, they’ll experience its dramatically shifting landscape—industrial sites, transit hubs, maker spaces, high-rise developments, waterfront parks—and engage in discussion about the neighborhood context and quality of life.
The City: We Live on an Island
With the continuing construction boom of both residential and commercial space, LIC is projected to house another 20,000 residents by 2020. Within the geographic constraints of our island metropolis, how will the city absorb the needs and demands of newcomers while balancing them with longtime residents’?
We’ll explore the potential impact on residents’ needs, including increased affordable housing options, better transit, and greater access to public, green, and open spaces. While learning the technical particulars of adapting our city’s critical systems and infrastructure to future growth, we’ll also delve into questions of corporate citizenship, civic participation, and urban identity.
The Future: The Role of Design
The competition among cities to be the site of Amazon’s HQ2 illustrated how modern industry and private enterprise are primary drivers of economic growth. The implications for urban planning are far-reaching. If business districts, public spaces, and waterfronts are increasingly shaped by corporate interests, what is the role of design within this framework? How can design help ensure that future development truly results in better lives for all of the city’s residents? We will use design as a catalyst to provoke debate about the future of our cities in light of the HQ2 outcome.
On March 6, 2019, the LICNYC: Site City Future series will kick off with a roundtable discussion titled, LICNYC: A Design Perspective/ PT1 NYC at Van Alen’s headquarters, 30 West 22nd Street, New York City. Moderated by Amy Plitt, editor of Curbed NY, it will feature a panel of influential architects and designers including: Amy Chester, Susannah Drake, Jonathan Marvel, Margie Ruddick, Andrea Steel, and Jay Valgora.
Subsequent events will include intimate conversations at Van Alen, additional artist-led public events, and A Good Neighbor?, a design charrette to imagine Long Island City in the year 2020, presented in collaboration with Henning Larsen, a global urban design, architecture and interior design practice, and Ramboll, a leading engineering, design and consultancy company.
Van Alen festivals are supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. LICNYC: Site City Future is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
About Van Alen Public Programs
Van Alen Institute hosts energetic public events in New York City and beyond for a broad audience of urban enthusiasts, design professionals, and creative thinkers from all walks of life. A continuously updated selection of programs using a variety of formats and media explores a diverse range of topics designed to provoke, enlighten, question, and critically examine the themes of Van Alen’s multi-year inquiries. The most recent programs include Van Alen Sessions, City-making from the Outside In, and FLOW! Getting Around the Changing City.
Visit the LICNYC: Site City Future project page to learn more and register for events.