These Routes Are Made for Walking

2019

Collaboration w/ Lino Caceres, Kunal Mokasdar, and Yile Xu

Columbia GSAPP

Woodbury/Monroe, New York. USA

Decades of failed policies and speculation have enabled Sprawl to spread pollution across the Hudson Valley. The Green New Deal presents itself as an opportunity to create programs that empower stakeholders, and redirect resources towards the reversal of this trend. Sprawl has been one of the major contributors to the increase in carbon emissions, due to its dependence on private vehicles, and by replacing natural carbon sequestering landscapes with artificial lawns; our strategy addresses both effects simultaneously. The infrastructure is already there, all we need is to do is update and equip it to actually serve its purpose: connect.

Taking advantage of these connections, we bolster existing activity nodes, and promote the creation of new ones. Newly protected grounds derived from enforcing existing guidelines, create room for green corridors that puncture the boundaries of isolated communities, integrating them to a new forest linking landscape, with open public spaces. The project doesn’t reach its maximum potential when all the paths are built, but when the lifestyle of suburban dwellers becomes armonius with their surroundings.