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October 2, 2007
Battery Park City
The NY Times
Project For Public Spaces' Fred Kent bashes the design of public spaces at Battery Park City:
Design,” Mr. Kent said, “is a disease. It is almost always at odds with good places.” And design, in his opinion, is what has ruined a potentially extraordinary place, the waterfront parks of Battery Park City.
Hailed as a triumph, favored with multiple design awards and imitated around the world, Battery Park City’s shiny new waterfront is one of Mr. Kent’s least favorite public places in New York. “It’s a mishmash of stuff that doesn’t fulfill human needs,” he said.
NoLandGrab: One of the multiple award-winning designers was landscape designer Laurie Olin, who is working on the publicly accessible open spaces at Atlantic Yards.
What he finds particularly irksome is that apart from the waterfront itself, two good destinations are located here, the Skyscraper Museum and the Museum of Jewish Heritage, whose entrances seem deliberately hidden.
“Good public spaces,” Mr. Kent said, “should reach out like an octopus.”
He is certain that the community itself would have come up with a better design for Battery Park. His strategy is to go directly to a community and then translate those ideas and wishes into marching orders for designers. “It’s magical, how people know what to do with a place,” he said.
NoLandGrab: It's also magical that city planners and designers have to learn the same lessons over and over again, especially when community members, who have to suffer the consequences of bad design and would benefit greatly from thoughtful design, are so eager to pitch in.
Posted by lumi at October 2, 2007 6:46 AM