Brooklynites building bridges
Six designs — submitted by pros and youths — announced as fi nalists for redesign competition
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Jurors for a city competition
to redesign the Brooklyn Bridge
walkway have chosen six fi nalists,
the City Council and its
partner fi rm for the contest, the
Van Alen Institute, announced
Thursday.
Designs unveiled on July
9 include three schemes from
architecture fi rms, as well as
three from contestants 21 years
old and under or younger —
all of which aim to revamp the
borough’s namesake span to
give more space to pedestrians
and cyclists, which has become
more important in the age of
social distancing, according to
one of the jurors.
“For too long, the Brooklyn
Bridge has been more geared toward
serving cars than people.
This competition is a unique
opportunity to rethink that balance
at a time when the city is
facing an outsized need for public
space,” said Regina Myer,
president of the local businessboosting
group Downtown
Brooklyn Partnership.
Finalists in the “professional”
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category include big
names like Dumbo architecture
fi rm Bjarke Ingels Group, who,
together with Manhattan engineering
and design fi rm Arup,
proposed a plan called “Back to
the Future.” The group’s plan
would return the bridge to its
roots by losing its car lanes and
ramps, and instead reserving
all its space on the walkway for
pedestrians, with room on the
current vehicle lanes below for
public transit, bike lanes, and
more foot paths.
Bjarke Ingels Group has
previously worked on projects
in Brooklyn like the sprawling
park they designed to replace
the crumbling Brooklyn-
Queens Expressway and two
soaring 600-foot towers at the
Williamsburg waterfront.
Similarly, Arup were the engineers
for the rebuilt Squibb
Bridge. The Manhattan fi rm
has also worked with the Council
in the past, when they published
a study for legislators advocating
boring an $11 billion
tunnel to replace the BQE.
Among the other two professional
proposals is a plan called
“Brooklyn Bridge Forrest,” by
Scott Francisco of Manhattan
fi rm Pilot Projects Design Collective,
which has an expanded
walkway and reclaimed bike
lanes below, along with greenspaces
dubbed “microforests”
at either end of the bridge.
Among the “young adult” fi -
nalists is a proposal for a glass
deck over the roadway’s sparkling
light and projection systems
called “Do Look Down,” by
designers Shannon Hui, Kwans
Kim, and Yujin Kim, who are
from Hong Kong, California,
and New York, respectively.
Another one from that category
called “The Cultural
Current,” by Tennesseans Aubrey
Bader and Maggie Redding,
calls for a colorful squiggly
walking path made out of
reused wood and recycled plastic,
which winds its way across
the bridge, while vehicle traffi c
below would be phased out over
time, according to the proposal.
The fi nalists will present
their ideas via Zoom at a virtual
“design showdown” on July 23
at 6 pm, where the jury and the
public will be able to give them
feedback and criticism. Winners
will be announced later
this summer, according to organizers.
Council Speaker Corey
Johnson, a contender to succeed
Bill de Blasio as mayor, and Van
Alen launched the competition
in February and took submissions
up until the beginning of
April.
The fi nalists were originally
supposed to be announced in
May, but the schedule was delayed
by the outbreak of the
novel coronavirus, a spokesman
for Johnson’s offi ce previously
told Brooklyn Paper.
Bjarke Ingels Group and Arup’s proposed deisgn to get rid of cars on the
roadway. Bjarke Ingels Group/Arup
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