NYLON #20: Activating Streets

Over the past two years, the COVID crisis has revealed new usages of the public realm and more particularly streets. With the closure of restaurants, stores, cultural venues, the streets have become places of research and creativity: no longer seen only as places of passage but as fields of experimentation. Various projects were set up all around the world and their success raises the question of the permanence of their installation and proposals to activate these new potential uses.
 
Business Improvement Districts, developing projects that are of benefit to local businesses and communities, can be successful tools. This can be illustrated by the Strand Aldwych project in London, which aims to transform a space mainly used by cars into a real public realm. The project set-up and construction phases are used here as an opportunity to test possible uses and activities. How can we develop a space that is both appropriable by local communities and highlights an international cultural and creative offer? 
 
London and New York will take this opportunity to share thought leadership forecasting how we can learn from these experimentations and propose new ways of using streets.  The live webinar will take place simultaneously in both cities at 09:00 in New York and 14:00 in London. This event forms a part of the NLA City Dialogues programme, which brings together speakers and audiences to foster cross-city dialogue and learning between cities.

Speakers: 
Peter Murray OBE, Curator-in-Chief, New London Architecture
Benjamin Prosky, Assoc. AIA, Executive Director, AIANY/Center for Architecture
Guillermo Gomez, Program Director, Urban Design Forum
May Yu, Vice President of Real Estate and Economic Development, Downtown Brooklyn Partnership