The goal of my senior project is to understand what makes a vibrant and human street environment. Since middle school, I have been a part of the safe streets movement, which has shown me all the ways that streets and urban spaces can fail. This lead me to an interest in architecture and urban design, where I was able to design spaces where people could live and thrive. In school, I have also learned about the detrimental and racist effects of large-scale urban planning, which has helped me appreciate the ways neighborhoods have been made less livable. But I still feel like I don’t understand what makes any one street happy.

Many movements claim to know what makes cities vibrant: those who follow Le-Corbusier, who believe that most of the land within a city should be a duality of sprawling parks and high-volume freeways; the grass-roots urban humanists, who believe that the street environment should be adapted by individual groups and communities; those who just want nothing to change; and so many more. But none of these movements seem to answer what separates a public realm full of community and joy, and one that is empty and unutilized.

To try to answer this question for myself, I want to break down streets and public spaces, trying to discern how each element of their design is impacting its users. This will mean looking into everything from a well-placed tree to the visual impact of a building facade. To learn about this I will read books on urban design and interview activists, urban planners, and architects. This initial stage of research will help me to understand how public spaces are created, and to learn about the intention baked into every element of their designs.

With this context, I will begin to explore the city. This means walking through neighborhoods I’ve never been through before, sketching interesting objects and streetscapes that seem especially impactful. This might mean drawing a street that’s empty, with the hope that I can identify why it’s so underutilized, or observing one that’s full of people and life and asking why it’s so vibrant. When on these streets I will also be talking to their users, with the goal of understanding elements of the street I would have never had the time and wisdom to appreciate. 

The last element of my project will be a book that consolidates my learning into a cohesive art and writing-based guide. Each set of two pages will be dedicated to one public space. Every page will break down and explore the space with a combination of illustration and writing. These pages will be directly inspired and guided by the book The Way Things Work, which uses art and writing to illustrate how the mechanical objects in our lives work. I will use the pen and watercolor medium, motif-based illustration, and creative layout of the book as a direct style guide, always going back to my copy when I’m in doubt.

This project will challenge me on multiple fronts. It will challenge what I know and understand about the world, making me question what makes a valuable street; it will force me to learn from the perspectives of experts and New Yorkers; and it will push my abilities in art and writing, helping me hone my skills in both realms. And, when I finish, I hope to have gained clarity on what makes New York’s streets vibrant and to have created a book that can communicate that learning to those around me.

– Zane Walker