Top Three Entries From French Teams
GRAND ARMY PLAZA -- Who should Brooklynites consult for ideas to make Grand Army Plaza safer and more pleasant for pedestrians and motorists alike? The French, it seems.
Last Friday, the Design Trust for Public Space announced the winners in their “Reinventing Grand Army Plaza” contest. Started in February along with the Grand Army Plaza Coalition, the two organizations described it as “an ideas competition to improve New York City’s greatest unrealized asset.” (see Contest Seeks to Solve Grand Army Plaza Nightmare by Amy Crawford) Over 200 entries were submitted and 30 were chosen anonymously by a jury of landscape architects, planners and local civic activists, all of whom are Brooklyn residents, said Deborah Marton, executive director of the Design Trust for Public Space.
Those 30 entries were narrowed down and jury members voted for their top picks, yielding a tie for first place. The top three entries were all envisioned by French teams.
“Please Wake Me Up!” by Guillaume Derrien and Gauthier le Romancer of Paris; and “Canopy” by Anne Sophie Coué, Christian Matteau, Chrystelle Sanaa, and Stephane Mauget from Nantes were the two first place finishers. “Urban Stripes” by Vincent Hertenberger and Andras Jambor from Paris took home second prize. Third place went to “A Center for Brooklyn,” by Brooklynites James Garrison, Brandt Graves, Simon Kristak, Vanessa Moon, Tim Peterson, Sal Tranchina, Aaron Tweedi, Darshin Van Parijs, Elliott White and Michael King.
The design for “Please Wake Me Up!” “squeezes traffic to the center” of the Plaza, which “makes traffic flow easier to understand,” said Marton. This shifts traffic into straight lines, instead of a circle, with regular traffic lights. Another feature of this design is the permanent, year-round home for the greenmarket.
Similarly, “Canopy” has traffic running North-South on one road instead of in a circle, said Marton. “You no longer have the confusion of the traffic circle.” This design features bridges, or “canopies” over traffic, “separating different types of circulation” - pedestrian and vehicular, she added.
“Urban Stripes” has Flatbush Avenue as a two-way route through the Plaza and residential traffic on Plaza Streets East and West. “A Center for Brooklyn,” features a larger oval for the Plaza, pushing traffic out to the sides.
The two first place schemes “cover a lot of ideas that are revisited in ways in other schemes,” said Marton. These ideas include the road running through the center of the Plaza, the separation of cars and people and the comfortable home for the green market.
As for the reason why all three top picks coincidentally came from across the pond? Traffic circles are not something we see very often in the U.S, Marton explained, as our cities follow a grid. Europeans have been dealing with them for a long time.
Not to worry, though, the French won’t have the final say in Grand Army Plaza’s future. Marton emphasized that this contest was an “ideas competition,” a way to give the Department of Transportation ideas on how to proceed when they start construction on the Plaza.
“The Champs-Élysées of Brooklyn” would have sounded pretty good, though.
---- Sarah Tobol
© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2008
All materials posted on BrooklynEagle.com are protected by United States copyright law.
Just a reminder, though -- It’s not considered polite to paste the entire story on your blog. Most blogs post a summary or the first paragraph,( 40 words) then post a link to the rest of the story. That helps increase click-throughs for everyone, and minimizes copyright issues.
So please keep posting, but not the entire article. arturc at att.net
Main Office 718 422 7400
