a great thing about open architectural competitions is the range of ideas, perspectives, and solutions that are offered in the design process. but this clearly won’t happen here, because certain designers, architects, and thinkers will be turned off by the pomposity of this entire assignment.

more specifically, i find serious flaws with the site of this competition. an intersection is a good start but in the urban fabric it is too small. for a redesign of an intersection to be effective, it must take into account the roads leading to it…otherwise it’s just an empty shell out of place in its environment.

the site should be a complete redesign of 4th ave from atlantic/flatbush to 15th street, and of 9th street from prospect park west to the gowanus canal - with a focus on a radical redesign of the intersection.

this sort of weak sauce design competition has no place in a serious dialogue on how to move new york city’s infrastructure into the twenty-first century.

lets be honest, the solution to this “problem” isnt all that difficult. just plant a bunch of trees down the median of 4th and along the sidewalks. create a buffered bike lane between the sidewalk and car parking…

then, and here’s the fun part, create a bunch of BLEEP quality watercolor-esque renderings showing how quaint 4th ave has become with its cute little bikerlanes shaded by its cute little trees, and the park slope stroller moms with their double-wides taking in the sites, sounds, and smells. i pretty much guarantee you that every proposal will look the same.

all this, of course, doesnt change the fact that 4th ave is - and will remain - a major north-south artery connecting lower brooklyn to the atlantic/flatbush axes. there’s no need to slopify this major urban artery, especially since the other side is an industialized canal zone.

i like the dichotomy between park slope and gowanus. i like walking down 9th to the lowe’s and watching the landscape - architectural and cultural - change. that’s what makes new york, and especially brooklyn, so special. why foist one neighborhood’s values onto another?

So is Matthew Modine, from Full Metal Jacket!

If you look at Modine’s wiki page, you learn that he founded something called Bicycle For A Day (BFAD), the goal of which is “to raise awareness of the need to reduce carbon emissions and to demonstrate many simple things that each of us can do everyday to accomplish a cleaner world.” http://www.bicycleforaday.org/

How original. Way to be an individual out there in Lalaland, Matthew. You guys should do a whole post on this doofus. Just look at him:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Matthew_Modine_by_David_Shankbone.jpg