Design Forecast 2016

Gensler Design Forecast 2016
Planning & Urban Design
For cities, new challenges,
new solutions
For postindustrial cities, a current challenge
is to recycle redundant and abandoned
infrastructure. New York City’s High Line, like
Germany’s Emscher Park a generation ago,
shows the benefit of reviving these stranded
assets. More cities will use them to embed
art and culture, amenities, and recreation into
areas that lack them—and reconnect, repair,
and activate these formerly industrial or
trade-focused districts as they do so.
A second challenge is to make cities healthier.
Growing public awareness of wellness,
coupled with greater transparency about
environmental issues like air, food, and water
quality, will put more pressure on cities to
clean up their act and step up measures
to improve access to open space, curtail mass
use of polluting vehicles, and promote
walking. Healthy cities are likely to be
a differentiator wherever environmental
conditions are stacked against health.
Transit will play a growing role in this. While
the immediate “fix” is to make existing
networks work better, look for larger cities
to start commissioning the next-generation
networks. One goal will be to rationalize
mobility across modes. Another will be
to tie city, regional, and high-speed intercity
systems together, creating key transit
nodes—Kings Cross in London and Hudson
Yards in New York City are examples—that
anchor redevelopment, serve their
cities as regional portals, and leverage
private investment.
Songhu-Sanmen Road Pedestrian Bridge, Shanghai
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