City: 2050

What will your city look like in 2050?

Peering into the future is a favorite exercise for planners and designers. From the Chicago 1893 Columbian Exhibition to New York City’s two Worlds Fairs (1939 and 1965) and beyond, the future was optimistic and filled with cool technology and architecture. But not all views of the future were so hopeful. George Orwell’s dystopian novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” (published in 1949) looked 35 years forward and painted a not-so-rosy vision of the future.

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VIDEO: Gensler's Grassroots Movement to Transform Communities

Image © Gensler

Out of a passion to call the design shots and a desire to make the built world a better place, the Gensler young professional group, ByDesign, was born.

The Houston-based group, which consists of 10-15 members and is now in its third year, seeks to foster conversation about the built environment at home and abroad. Their ideas range from bold city redevelopments to transformations of underutilized, highly visible areas. The site selections and design solutions are a direct reflection of the personality and passion of each team member.

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A Place for a Mission: The San Francisco AIDS Foundation Center on Castro Street

Image © Gensler/Jasper Sanidad

This post is part of a blog series related to Dialogue 30, "The Livability Issue.”

The importance of place is often discussed in terms of one’s place in a family or society, and even of one’s place in the universe. How we relate to geography and find our way in either the natural or the built world all deals with our sense of a place and where we belong in it. Place informs us on the nuanced details of how we might find rest, support, supplies and shelter. For humans as well as for other animals, place is incredibly important to our sense of belonging, safety and well-being. It is the importance of place in human lives that led to Strut, the newest site for San Francisco AIDS Foundation, on Castro Street in San Francisco.

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Project Spotlight: Building a Better Block with Better Block

Image © Gensler

At the edge of Dallas’ Bishop Arts District, what was once an unremarkable, unvisited concrete corner is now a lush, welcoming neighborhood hangout. The hub of this activity is the new Better Block headquarters. Part office, part co-working space, part venue and part maker-space, the new headquarters is a flexible collision of diverse programs, a synthesis of urban design experimentation and community hub.

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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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