Our Cities Ourselves Exhibition Opens in NYC June 24

If you’re in the New York area this summer, go and check out a new exhibition that opens tomorrow, June 24, at the AIA-NY’s Center for Architecture (536 LaGuardia Place, NYC): Our Cities Ourselves: The Future of Transportation in Urban Life explores the creation of better cities through better transportation and demonstrates what is possible when we design our cities for ourselves. The exhibition kicks off its worldwide tour in New York, showcasing the potential of transportation systems in ten major cities. It illustrates how the dream of a sustainable, equitable and livable urban future can be realized, when transport is put center-stage.

Organized by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), Our Cities Ourselves challenges the car-dependent model of sprawl development prevalent in cities around the world, instead advocating for an urban landscape that prioritizes walking, cycling, and public transit. Each of ten visions is uniquely shaped to fit a distinct urban culture: Ahmedabad, Budapest, Buenos Aires, Dar es Salaam, Guangzhou, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Mexico City, New York City, and Rio de Janeiro. What lessons can be learned by studying ten cities on six continents? Some cities in the developing world are leapfrogging over the mistakes of developed cities, while older cities are creatively responding to their existing infrastructure. The exhibition shows how every city can benefit if it puts sustainable transportation at the heart of its planning.

Ten of the world’s leading architects will show how the integration of urban planning and transport can enable cities to thrive through population growth. Responsible for a critical view on Rio de Janeiro was Brazilian office CAMPO aud in collaboration with Fábrica and their proposal CENTRAL DO BRASIL STATION: EXOCONCOURSE / ENDOSTREET. Following is a detailed project description:

Completed in 1943, Rio’s Central do Brasil train station was simply and rightfully named after its original purpose, to be nothing less than Brazil’s most important transportation hub. The challenges of the site are monumental. The statistics and scales related to Central do Brasil presented us with an overwhelming context of operations with a rather frightening future scenario for the area unless a radical shift is proposed. In this project we take on the site’s monumentality with interventions that are equally monumental, and use this feature to domesticate and equalize the current situation, not to clash and contrast.

In place of reinforcing the limits of the station versus its neighborhood’s open spaces, this project takes the concourse of the station out, and the street in: exo- and endo-. The project is based on the meticulous redesign of the station’s surrounding urban fabric, closely interweaving it with a large-scale and continuous canopy that expands the main concourse of the station, connecting different areas on the same level. Taking advantage of several existing derelict urban blocks, the project proposes an increase on their permeability and density while keeping relevant architectural samples of the former neighborhood, taking out precarious and dangerous buildings. The new blocks were designed in order to prioritize street-level activities and increase permeability throughout the site. Their overall density and height vary according to their relative position toward the station. Each block offers public and semi-public courtyards that are accessed through open corners that mark the transition from the streets to a more intimate shared space. Each open corner helps activate public permanence and use in the entire region, articulating all its scales.

The station will no longer be merely a transportation hub. It will expand its scope to become a true urban cluster that sets a balanced scenario for the coexistence of dense ground-floor activities and high-performance public transportation. In order to optimize its intermodal features, all public transportation have will share the station’s main lobby. To realize that, systems of seamless and smooth connections have been devised under the canopy. Now, users can shift from one transportation mode to another effortlessly while having a true and diverse urban experience in-between.

Aiming at energizing the connectivity of its surrounding communities, the station was set up to have a more active local role. The new urban tissue around it will allow for more diverse connections between Downtown and the neighborhoods on the hills (favelas). The connection axis created by the canopy culminates at two key-elements for connectivity to the “favelas”: a linear park climbing up the hill; and an elevator cluster with several allied programs that links the ground floor to the “favela’s” highest point. In the future, this spot will have a cable car station as part of the systema that will interlink several “favelas” in the area that is being planned by Rio’s local government All new underground connections have several vertical openings that allow for vegetation, natural sunlight and ventilation to reach it. The canopy physically connects all transport stations to the street level creating an open-air concourse that enables a more comfortable crossing of the avenue. It is composed by a three-dimensional porous surface that combines shaded areas, covered passageways, natural vegetation and commercial units. It is intended to have a very strong presence on the site, creating an inhabitable portal to the area and common space for all means of transportation. The current sixteen-lane hectic structure of the avenue is replaced by BRT bus lines and both express and local bike tracks, having its car lanes are reduced to four low-speed tracks on each side. The optimization brought by the BRT system will also make the presence of a bus terminal in the area completely unnecessary, what enabled the project to consider its complete removal.

The Our Cities Ourselves NY exhibition runs from June 24 until September 11, 2010. Read more about related programs at the Center for Architecture’s website.

Images: CAMPO + Fábrica