Infastructural Monument
As our post-war urban infrastructures have aged, new voices call for the urgent need to replace and reconstruct them. However, rather than rebuilding or rewiring entirely new systems, urban designers, developers, investors, policy makers, and planners will be most effective by targeting specific infrastructural projects that address multiple urban problems. The Infrastructural Monument challenges us to rethink how we design infrastructure for the long haul.
The Infrastructural Monument is the inaugural symposium of the MIT Center for Advanced Urbanism. The symposium brings together architects, planners, urban designers, real estate developers, investors, policy makers, transportation experts, and others to explore new ways of designing infrastructural objects in order to accommodate diverse user groups, and provide multiple benefits. The symposium will tackle the design of infrastructure projects, the funding models behind these projects, and the policy required to enable these types of projects.
Each of the scheduled panel sessions is organized around a question that examines a different aspect of transportation infrastructure for US suburban cities. The panels will look at the repurposing of excess infrastructure, investment opportunities arising from the alignment of design and development, the role of large-scale projects such as intermodal stations, and the potential of infrastructural objects to act as monuments for our regional suburban environments.
Infrastructural Monument
Which great projects need to be undertaken today that can have a great visibility and demonstrate that infrastructures can inspire optimism and a sense of progress? The Chinese and Europeans have high-speed rail with great stations; or new airports. What monuments can we configure that are productive for the American city, while instilling a new sense of civic pride?
Discussants: Hon. James L. Oberstar, Henk Ovink, Christopher Lee,Pierre Bèlanger.
Respondents: Antón García Abril and Eran Ben-Joseph
Moderator: Ole Bouman
Infrastructural Redundancy
Any analysis of infrastructure grids of American cities, compared to others, displays the massive presence of transportation infrastructure, specifically for automobiles. As we move past peak car use, do our cities have excess infrastructure, and if so, does it makes sense to eliminate certain redundancies, and re-program roads for other (including private) uses?
Discussants: Stan Allen, Donald Briggs, Robert Levit, Stephen Ramos
Respondents: Miho Mazereeuw and Brent Ryan
Moderator: Nader Tehrani
Marrying infrastructure design and urban development
Historically suburban development is grounded in the independence of the production of roadways (public, government) from the development of properties along it (private). In order to guarantee this independence, roads are designed with rules and zoning principles that are value-neutral to any adjacent development opportunity. Recently, cash- strapped towns are beginning to outsource infrastructure design and production to real estate developers. What are the opportunities that a more close alignment of infrastructure design and development can offer to the public interest?
Discussants: Jo Guldi, Alex Klatskin, Roger Sherman, Malcolm Smith
Respondents: Dennis Frenchman and Anne Spirn
Moderator: Alan Berger
The intermodal station as a viable alternative
The intermodal station, and the associated intersection of regional highways or interstates, with railroad lines, offers a great opportunity, based on the latent centrality of such intersections within the larger urban transportation system. Should we place big bets on such projects? Is this a future for the suburbs?
Discussants: Stephen Crosby, Petra Messick, Marcel Smets, Cino Zucchi
Respondents: Kent Larson and Christopher Zegras
Moderator: Alexander D’Hooghe