Reconnecting Brooklyn's Public Spaces
A new plan reveals how WXY will reinvent public space to better connect residence.
A plan to reconnect nearly 50 acres of public space between Downtown Brooklyn and the Brooklyn Bridge, created by WXY, has been unveiled by a coalition of community groups.
Led by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership with Claire Weisz, FAIA of the design firm WXY architecture + urban design, the sweeping new plan known as The Brooklyn Strand will completely reinvent the area and transform the quality of public space, better connecting people and creating an appealing, accessible waterfront.
As a response to New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio's calls to rethink the area, the process included 50 site walkthroughs, scores of meetings, and various public workshops. In leading the effort, WXY coordinated the efforts of some 250 community stakeholders, including residents, community groups, business leaders, and numerous municipal officials and agencies.
WXY also contributed proposed designs for individual Brooklyn Strand projects (images), each a response to collected input from stakeholders involved in the process.
"By design the Brooklyn Strand plan is an opportunity to adapt 1950s-era infrastructure into a new vision for true connectivity and accessibility between downtown Brooklyn, its neighborhoods and the waterfront," says Claire Weisz, FAIA, architect and urbanist who co-founded WXY architecture + urban design. "The Brooklyn Strand plan transforms leftover spaces from expressway plans that cut off neighborhoods, turning them into into public spaces that connect people."
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