Growth, Millennials and the Multinodal City

Image courtesy of Wikimedia.

Driven by robust growth, New York’s Department of City Planning projected the city’s population to exceed 9 million by 2030. But, as we know, projections can be wrong, and those estimates are likely to be somewhat premature. As the population swells, so does the pressure put on the city to respond with infrastructure, transportation and housing.

Crain’s recently asked us how to minimize the impact of migration and population growth on current residents. Our response? We proposed building new land to upset urban land economics and repurposing underutilized infrastructure to increase connectivity and unlock an array of opportunities for residents.

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Barbican Pop-Up Garden

The new pop-up garden at the London Underground's Barbican station. Image © Gensler

Every day we Londoners make our way through the urban jungle. Our daily routines bring us together with strangers and friends alike and together we endure some of the more dire spaces that our modern metropolis produces. And yet we discover opportunities in the strangest places to improve our urban environment and perhaps put a smile on the faces of our fellow urbanites.

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Parks in the sky? Subterranean bike paths? Meet the livable city, designed in 3-D

The Shanghai Tower. Image © Gensler

Some of the most cutting-edge things going on behind-the-scenes in architecture today involve advanced 3-D modeling and digital design technology. Architects and designers are now using game engine technology for better/faster visualization and design.

And then there’s 3-D printing technology. Several teams around the globe are working to bring 3-D printed houses to market. It’s incredible, but houses can now be made (potentially, in one day) by a huge, computer-controlled, 3-D printer that extrudes a concrete mix in successive layers through a giant nozzle.

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Work in the City: The Transportation Issue

Image © Gensler

Work in the City is a yearlong initiative directed at key drivers redefining how the rapidly changing landscape of work is influencing a new urban paradigm. It combines research, design thinking and unbridled creativity, and encapsulates Gensler’s ongoing commitment to ensuring global cities are vibrant, livable and sustainable platforms of economic growth and human interaction.

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Gensler Reimagines Work in the City

Image © Gensler

In 2013 Gensler launched a three-year initiative called Reimagining Cities aimed at prompting a series of conversations on how thoughtful, community specific design proposals can address nagging urban problems. Year one focused on the vitality of public open space and continued significance of the Town Square. Gensler offices around the globe created design based scenarios that presented alternatives to the ineffectual conventional wisdom espoused in too many critical public conversations happening in cities across the globe. Our design teams sought fresh solutions to seemingly intractable problems, from retooling pedestrian malls to capturing infrastructure projects as communal space, and in doing so reimagined how cities can harness the potential of open space to create more livable communities.

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