DEPAVE: The Ground as a Site of Design and Repair
The ground is an often-overlooked site of design and repair. The thin crust of asphalt, concrete, and compacted urban soil beneath our feet covers most of New York City’s open space, multiplying heat in neighborhoods while severing water’s flow into the earth. These hard surfaces are unevenly distributed, building upon existing patterns of inequality and decades of green infrastructural disinvestment.
Recognizing that cities are not only shaped by physical matter, but also systems, institutions, and social associations, this roundtable event coalesces these relationships and asks how incremental and intergenerational acts of subtraction, however small, can be drivers of infrastructural, ecological and social repair. What would it take to 'depave' a portion of sidewalk, a parking lot, a freeway, an entire city?
Through brief presentations and a moderated conversation, explore how communities, designers and city agencies can productively engage with each other to realize a greener, more just, and resilient city.
