Toward the green city through revitalizing major obsolescent urban lands

Abstract

The author, an architect and urban designer, has played a leading role on a broad range of assignments in highly diverse urban settings in North America and Europe. Much of his work focuses on the rejuvenation of downtowns, waterfronts, neighborhoods, and campus master planning. His projects include the award-winning Saint Paul on the Mississippi Development Framework, the Brooklyn Bridge Park on the East River in New York, the East River waterfront in Lower Manhattan, the Fan Pier in Boston, the Southwest and Southeast Waterfronts in Washington, DC, the Vision Plan for Washington DC, Kendall Square and North Point/Lechmere Square in Cambridge, the Downtown Hartford Economic and Urban Design Action Strategy and the Downtown Master Plan for Fort Lauderdale. Current efforts include the " Big Picture for the Big Dig": the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston, the renewal of Regent Park, a major public housing project in Toronto; the implementation of the Convention District Master Plan in San Juan, P.R., and Urban Design advice for the Cincinnati Center City Development Corp (3CDC). In each city, with each project, his strategic, consensus-building approach has led to coordinated planning and a renewed focus on urban design. The text that follows is an edited and revised version of a paper presented at the international symposion on"The Natural City, " Toronto, 23-25 June, 2004, sponsored by the University of Toronto's Division of the Environment, Institute for Environmental Studies, and the World Society for Ekistics.