Andrea Benavides Ward Reading - NewYork Urbanism

With this blog I want to share my experience of living in an extravagant city such as New York. I would like to share my own perspective of the city and analyze its particularities and question how things work and in which ways they could be improved.

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Personal Perspective of NY

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Sketching my daily journey.

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Cognitive map of my new daily routine in Manhattan. The map´s process began by recognizing my usual journey and then underline the places where I go and the approximate time. Third, I analyze the things I see during the journey and and how they change at different hours. Last but not least, I recognize that I have a particular sense of orientation in the city. Everytime I am heading north, in my head it actually feels as if I was heading south, and viceversa. Still trying to undersatnd why.

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Central Park Conservancy

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Intersection of Broadway with Amsterdam. Where Manhattan´s grid is constantly challenged. The point in which a diagonal line takes control over the perpendicular lines. This feature generates a particular situation in this specific point of Boradway. Why is there a big traffic not only of people, but also of vehicles? Does this intersection give this place an automatic hierarchization? Is this an attractive place for commercial activities? Is it strange that this situation occurs in a residential zone?

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What happens when in the middle of the street appears a Metro Station?

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Particular situation that keeps repeating all along Broadway Avenue. The users behaviour in this kind of public spaces is the same whether they are in the 65th with Broadway or in the 116th with Broadway. Why? Why where this small public spaces created in the first place? Should they be imporved? Should they be complemented with other kind of activities to make them more useful or comfortable? Is this a positive feature for the city? What are the users main characteristics? Lets try to figure some answers.

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Interesting way of analyzing the interaction between architecture and the city. How the building retreats and generates a public shaded space for pedestrians to use. Why doesn´t this situation happen with the majority of buildings? What would happen if we simulate several public spaces by using the same picture of the same building over and over again? Shouldn´t we try to keep generating this positive interaction between architecture and the city? How do we do it?