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 panel draws these relationships together across sites, scales and agencies.  

As part of the Center for Architecture’s programming for the CFA Lab: Repair – Democracy and Urban Spaces exhibition, this DEPAVE roundtable 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, the panel will explore how communities, designers and city agencies can productively engage with each other to realize a greener, more just, and resilient city. We will hear how various agencies, designers, and organizations engage with the ground in their work, and how they navigate the complexities of removing impervious surfaces in New York City, from planning regulations and concerns of gentrification to landscape design and urban mobility. 
 
Speakers:
Tricia Martin, Studio Manager, Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Urban Design Team 
Sam Robinson, Landscape Architect and Co-Principal, Field Form 
Matthew Shore, Director of Planning and Development, South Bronx Unite