WXY was invited to submit an article for the AIANYS Winter Quarterly magazine focused on transportation and infrastructure, so we wrote about parks! It might seem incongruous but that is, in fact, how Claire and her design team at WXY approached two very different park designs—the Brooklyn Strand and the Rockaway Boardwalk—as opportunities to resolve a host of infrastructure issues and to facilitate resilience and connectivity.
“It is not enough for parks to exist as single-use islands of tranquility. Today’s parks need to do much more: build infrastructure, provide connectivity and increase resilience—as well as offer urbanites of all ages and abilities the opportunity for exercise. When people were toiling away in factories for twelve hours a day, exercising outdoors was anathema to anyone’s concept of downtime. But by providing non-auto transportation, a park system becomes a place for moderate to rigorous activity—which, given the state of public health, should no longer be considered an amenity any more than transportation and infrastructure are.”
PDF here: AIANYSQuarterlyStrandRockaway