This presentation presents the conceptual design ideas for the Eastern Parkway / East New York Avenue strip at the east side of Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
One of the important influences on my design choices is the part of the Eastern Parkway that was designed by Olmsted & Vaux more than a century ago. They wanted to create a parkway system that would connect parks throughout the city. But in Brooklyn, only 2 of those parkways were actually built: Ocean Parkway and Eastern Parkway, resembling the grand boulevards in Paris.
The Eastern Parkway design from Olmsted & Vaux runs from Prospect park in the East of Crown Heights until Ralph Avenue. The parkway consists out of three roadways: the wide roadway in the middle is flanked by two wide malls that separates the middle roadway from two narrow roadways, carrying one lane of local traffic and two lanes of parking. Along the parkways, six rows of trees form borders between the pedestrian walkways, bike paths and housing units from traffic. The Eastern Parkway is a desirable residential area, due to the buffer of trees between traffic and housing.
The Eastern Parkway design from Olmsted & Vaux runs from Prospect park in the East of Crown Heights until Ralph Avenue. The parkway consists out of three roadways: the wide roadway in the middle is flanked by two wide malls that separates the middle roadway from two narrow roadways, carrying one lane of local traffic and two lanes of parking. Along the parkways, six rows of trees form borders between the pedestrian walkways, bike paths and housing units from traffic. The Eastern Parkway is a desirable residential area, due to the buffer of trees between traffic and housing.
An extension of this parkway runs through the site I'm working on. But from Ralph Avenue on, the extension of the Eastern Parkway is nothing like the green infrastructure Olmsted & Vauw designed. The road has 2 traffic lanes in each direction, and a parking lane on each side, and a limited amount of trees is the only greenery provided.
My objective for this part of the parkway is to transform it into a contemporary, which means that it addresses some of ecological issues: a green environment with less impervious surfaces and a water collection system to lower storm water volumes, a water treatment system to lower pollution in local waterways due to surface runoff water, and local healthy food production.
When taking a closer look at the site, we see that 2 grids with a different orientation come together at the East New York Avenue. Right next to it, the Eastern Parkway crosses the grid parallel with the East New York Avenue. A lot of streets are coming together on this strip, because of that a lot of the blocks have an irregular shape.
All these streets crossing at different angles, have resulted in irregular shaped blocks and triangular shaped residual spaces that are often vacant or used for parking. All these vacant lands together hold a lot of potential, and maybe they can be use more efficiently.
All these streets crossing at different angles, have resulted in irregular shaped blocks and triangular shaped residual spaces that are often vacant or used for parking. All these vacant lands together hold a lot of potential, and maybe they can be use more efficiently.
That's why I started looking at the traffic circulation to see whether or not all of these streets cutting through this strip are necessary. The 2 parallel streets Eastern Parkway and East New York Avenue are most important for the circulation. And in the Crown Heights grid, the streets running from North to South are more important than the ones going from East to West. That's how I came to a new traffic circulation. The Eastern Parkway and the East New York Avenue are now both one way traffic streets, so they can work together with the North-south connections in between.
This new traffic circulation opens up a lot of space and creates a couple of new possibilities:
On Eastern parkway and East New York Avenue, the reduction from 4 to 2 traffic lanes creates space for green pedestrian walkways and bike paths at both streets. Along these streets rows of trees can create a buffer between the traffic and the housing units. The east-west streets are now no longer accessible for cars, so they can be transformed into strips for urban agriculture. Instead of small scale community gardens on vacant lots here and there, this system of healthy food production will be on a scale for the neighborhood. Local food production will secure healthy food supplies, lower food transport into the city, and create a strong community. The vacant residual spaces can be turned into small parklands or recreational areas for the residents.
On Eastern parkway and East New York Avenue, the reduction from 4 to 2 traffic lanes creates space for green pedestrian walkways and bike paths at both streets. Along these streets rows of trees can create a buffer between the traffic and the housing units. The east-west streets are now no longer accessible for cars, so they can be transformed into strips for urban agriculture. Instead of small scale community gardens on vacant lots here and there, this system of healthy food production will be on a scale for the neighborhood. Local food production will secure healthy food supplies, lower food transport into the city, and create a strong community. The vacant residual spaces can be turned into small parklands or recreational areas for the residents.
When taking a look at the built environment, it is clear that Pitkin Avenue is a very commercial street. There is no need to add any kind commercial activity to the site. On my site the residential land use is most prominent, so I would like to enhance that by filling in the vacant lots with housing units. That way the whole strip becomes a green and productive environment to live in.
The topography shows that all surface runoff water coming from the northern part of Crown Heights runs to the site. All this runoff water can be collected at the Eastern Parkway, treated and then used to irrigate the strips where the urban agriculture takes place.
All these concepts will be worked out on a smaller scale, at the junction of the Eastern Parkway, East New York Avenue, and Park Place.
