Smart Streets – Harlem 125th Street

This project is a design studio class coordinated with the Urban Design Lab and conducted by Columbia’s schools of architecture and engineering working in collaboration with the 125^th Street Business Improvement District (BID). The studio explores the street section as a tool for greater urban sustainability, reconceptualizing the street to address water, energy, and waste.

Using the area of West 125^th Street between Morningside Avenue and Fifth Avenue as a laboratory, the researchers sought to bring sustainable strategies to the urban grid, questioning how the concept of “smart building” could lend itself to “smart streets”, and what it means to be “smart”.

Urban Ecology Studio Fall 2005
Critics:  Richard Plunz, Patricia Culligan