GOOD’s Livable Streets Contest Winner Announced
- Posted by: GOOD
- on May 18, 2009 at 2:40 pm
For our Design a Livable Street project, we asked GOOD readers to take a picture of a poorly planned street and photoshop it into shape. Our judges, Aaron Naparstek from Streetsblog and the designer Carly Clark, looked over the submissions and were “extremely impressed with the quality.” They picked a first place entry and four runners up. See their notes below.
Fifth Place: Times Square, New York City by Pilar Pastor.
“We freely admit that contests submitting New York City redesign concepts were at a disadvantage. Since it’s our own hometown we found ourselves getting very picky over miniscule design details. So, while Carly and I both believe that Times Square is not the right spot for cherry blossom trees (unless they’re made out of garish fluorescent lighting), we think it’s great that Pilar Pastor is exploring the idea of a completely car-free Times Square. That’s the kind of big thinking we need in this town.”
Fourth Place: Auckland, New Zealand by Aaron Nelson.
“We thought that Aaron Nelson did a really nice job of humanizing this stark, unfriendly street corner. We like the way he activated the streetscape by transforming a blank wall into a café. His street design treatment has vastly improved the pedestrian experience. And it’s realistic too. You could really see this sort of design being implemented and used as a model throughout the city.’’
Third Place: Flint, Michigan by Shaun Smakal.
“We really liked it that Shaun incorporated clean energy and green building concepts into this thorough and thoughtful re-envisioning of a Flint, Michigan alleyway. This is the kind of holistic approach to ‘livable streets’ that we love to see. It would have been nice to see some human beings in the rendering and a nearly empty alley is sort of an easy target for a redesign, but this is solid work.”
Second Place: Milwaukee, Wisconsin by Juli Kaufmann.
“Holy cow. The ‘before’ picture is incredible. Did someone drop a bomb on this street? Yikes. When was the last time anyone gave this public space some TLC? With some relatively simple and cheap design changes, Juli Kaufmann has vastly improved conditions for pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders and, in the process, has made the entire neighborhood more attractive to residents and businesses. Milwaukee is lucky to have Juli Kaufmann.”
The Winner: Portsmouth, Virginia by Steve Price.
“Not only does Steve Price know his way around the old Photoshop, he also really understands what it takes to make a ‘complete street.’ Carly and I both loved this rendering. As far as photo simulations go, Steve does an amazing job of getting the angles and the perspective just right. As for the street design, Steve’s holistic approach is just what what’s needed in a barren urban environment like this. He’s thinking about new infill development, light rail, bike lanes, and outdoor space for pedestrians and putting it all together to create an entirely new neighborhood. Portsmouth should go and make this happen right now!”
Thanks to Aaron and Carly for participating and thanks to everyone who submitted. We’ll be in touch with all the winners.
DISCUSSION: 13 Comments
“This is the kind of holistic approach to ‘livable streets’ that we love to see.”Aweseome. That’s exactly what the project was seeking to accomplish.”It would have been nice to see some human beings in the rendering…”Will Etling has had the ‘populated version of the rendering Since April. Maybe he could post it now…? Ooh! Wait…<IMG alt=”The populated version… “… nearly empty alley is sort of an easy target for a redesign…”Not when you compare it to a street…All complaints aside, though, good job to all the winners (and non-winners). It’s great to know there’s so many folks out there thinking about and visualizing this sort of thing!
Crud… The image didn’t post…
great! Does anyone have information on what software a student might use to design/sketch drawings similar to the examples submitted in this post? thanks in advance.
i’m partial to the silkworm-inspired alstom trams from Lyon in the NY one.otherwise, these are beautiful. i wish there was a national project to do this stuff quickly. maybe get volunteers to help with installation? or create some jobs?also, i hope that bike lanes can eventually find there way to the other side of parked cars, safe away from traffic and doors. in milwaukee’s second place, the bus is still driving in the bike lane. and door zones = no good.
Anonymous, when I was in school, we used a range of tools. The simplest (and cheapest) was to take digital photos of the site, print them out and tape them together, then (using trace paper) trace over them while sketching in the new elements and tracing the old ones we wanted to keep. Also, there’s a huge variety of drawing, sketching software available for a range of prices. Many have reduced student prices. We used (and still use) the Adobe Creative Suite: Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign.
Two of the biggest (and FREE!) sketching/editing tools are GIMP and Google SketchUp. GIMP is a digital image editor and SketchUp is a 3D modeling program (great for blocking out building masses, streets, trees, etc., printing or transfering to an image editor, then tracing by hand or photo-editing.
How long do we have to wait before pedestrian orienteted cities are the STANDARD? Obama should make some kind of statement be it a law or whatever to promote pedestrian friendly construction.
Congrats, Steve! I was blown away by all the entries posted on the site and am eager to see many more of these streets in the U.S. in the years ahead.
so, ultimately, a few paint strips, colored pavement and island vegetation ceate a “livable street”??? i beg to differ. And I don’t think shutting down existing street with vehicular traffic isnt necessarily the best way to go about it either…this contest had so much potential and the selected “winners” are a bit of a let down…
Its not about just adding paint strips and reducing vehicle lane – its about context. If you examine these areas they are generally within the core of the cities. These are areas where we desire transportation choices. And yes, these choices should be weighted toward pedestrians and system efficiency (mass transit, better use of infrastructure, reduction of heat-island) – not just individual efficiency (one person moving quickly in a car).
Creating a livable street is absolutely more than just vegetation and colored pavement. As others have noted, it’s a holistic approach that includes many things you can’t see in a photoshop image-like range of transit options, a master plan and a transportation policy that benefits all users.This contest, however, also judged the participants technical skill in conveying an idea. Since we can’t see “transportation policy” in an image, we rely on colored pavement, bike/bus lanes and vegetation to get us excited. It’s really just a way to remind us that streets can (and should) be hospitable and images can help us gather around these ideas.
What a neat work! Amazing to see those streets transform so radically and become that much friendlier. Congratulations to the top 5!
This competition is a great idea, yet this is a collection of wonderful examples of how to use various computer programmes, rather then a collection of wonderful street designs.There are some good features, and some not so good features in all the entries, however I will limit my comments to the winner.As a cyclist, I would need somewhere to park my bicycle in order to go into the shops, but parking has been omitted. Cyclists of diferent ages and fitness levels cycle at different speeds, and the path is too narrow for over taking. Cargo bicycles will also have problems as some can be more than a metre wide.As a pedestrian, how would I dodge first the cyclist, who travel at one speed, then the cars, travelling at another speed, and finally the trams, travelling at another speed again – and then repeat to make it safely to the other side of the street?Cyclists and cars can travel on the same space, with a low speed limit and a ban on cars over-taking cyclists it is perfectly safe. From my perspective, this is a street designed for cars, with small provision made for cyclists and pedestrians and a token light rail line.