MyWHaT

How would you design your street?

These are images of drawings left at the Our Cities Ourselves exhibit at the Center for Architecture in New York city. Viewers are giving a cross-section of a street and asked, “How would you design your street?”

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I like the old car jungle gym…recycle it!

MyWHaT highlighted this exhibit earlier this year when we highlighted the 10 Principles for transport in Urban Life.

Also included in the slide show are the feet of Bill Palladino and I standing in a square meter. It’s a powerful visual to see the space we consume when we make simple trips. The description at the top suggests that a bus in Mexico City is full at 7 people per square meter.

The Next 20-years

The booklet at the bottom of this post is an excellent substitute to visiting the exhibit. I really like pages 8 & 9 that walk the reader through the ‘the next 20 years’ and what we will need at different stages (page 8 below).

The first example is a 30-year-old woman expressing a desire to bike her children to day-care, but forced to drive. “It would be much more convenient to take my child to day-care on the bicycle on the way to work, but I’m just not sure it’s safe, so I drive the minivan. It costs a lot and I spend more time looking for parking.“

Reminds me of one of MyWHaT’s earliest unsolicited emails by a frustrated mom wishing to bike her children around instead of drive.

(Click for larger view)

If you’re in New York, “Our Cities Ourselves” is up until September 11. Details are here.

Our Cities Ourselves Booklet:

Related Articles

• Architecture exhibition envisions a sustainable urban future (greendiary.com)
• Our Cities Ourselves (archidose.blogspot.com)
• N.Y. exhibit imagines utopian, green cities in 2030 (ctv.ca)