Silver Urban Planning and Urban Design · 2016
Nyc 2050 City Masterplan
by Walmir Luz
- A' Design Award 2016 Silver Winner in Urban Planning and Urban Design
- Awarded April 15, 2016
- CLIENT: Walmir Luz
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 74,815
- Verification code 9D119660AC · Verify this award
About Nyc 2050 City Masterplan
NYC 2050 is a city masterplan for New York City that responds to rising sea levels. The plan studies the history of the edge of Manhattan and shows how the city can adapt once again for the future. Flooding is accepted as part of daily urban life, with Venice used as a reference. The masterplan presents the changes needed for a flooded city to remain a vibrant and important cosmopolitan centre. The proposal is supported by research on climate predictions and is presented as a series of digital photo manipulations in a square format.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- This futuristic masterplan envisions how NYC can readapt itself to the near future sea level rise and continues to be a vibrant and important cosmopolitan city center at the same time that it addresses the natural changes to its environment and surroundings.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Photoshop file. 40in x 40in.
- Tags
- New York City, Climate Change, Flood, Sea Level Rise, Masterplan, 2050
- Production Technology
- The whole masterplan was designed and created using photo manipulations on Photoshop.
- Design Challenge
- The critical part was to carefully study the city's current masterplan in order to better design the new one that required major real state compromises. The new design had to accommodate the necessary changes, introduce a new urban life and reimagine a new New York that is ready to embrace the future.
- Project Duration
- August - December 2015. Ithaca, NY.
Walmir Luz, Thesis, Bachelor of Architecture, Cornell University. - Operation Flow
- This masterplan can be used to identify the changes that NYC will have to implement in order to accommodate the needs of a flooded city.
- Research
- The masterplan was conceptualized by studying the history of Manhattan's edge, the climate crisis predictions by the United States Landfalling Hurricane Probability Project, and several climate studies produced by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
- Inspiration
- As one looks throughout the history of Manhattan's edge, one may realize how it has changed throughout the years in order to better adapt the city to the needs of the time. This masterplan addresses the necessary changes to make NYC a resilient city as it embraces the current climate crisis and it readapts itself once again for the future. By taking Venice as inspiration and letting the flood be part of the city life, a new New York is brought to life.
- Image Credits
- Image #1: Walmir Luz, NYC 2050, 2015.
Image #2: Walmir Luz, NYC 2050, 2015.
Image #3: Walmir Luz, NYC 2050, 2015.
Image #4: Walmir Luz, NYC 2050, 2015.
Image #5: Walmir Luz, NYC 2050, 2015.
Colors of Nyc 2050 City Masterplan
Design Interview about Nyc 2050 City Masterplan
The main idea was to reimagine how to redesign New York making water a part of the urban life. A city that embraces the flood and other environmental issues of the present time and uses them as a solution to other problems.
The focus of this masterplan was to show how New York can once again reshape its edge and readapt itself at the same time that it maintains its vitality and urban qualities of nowadays while embracing/protecting itself from the sea level rise, storm surges and future floods.
I’m currently compiling all the research that I have done so far and expanding it a little bit further so to create a book that deeply explores and discuss the possibilities introduced by this proposal.
This concept was a 4-month work going back and forth between design and research.
I have always been intrigued about how cities will be shaped in the future when they are forced to face the consequences of present environmental issues. With that in mind, I decided to take NYC, one of the most important cities in the world, and design its future as part of my thesis to conclude my 5-year architecture program at Cornell University.
This proposal is more of a city utopia/dystopia, whatever we may define it and I see it as a case study for our future.
Society is currently living at the edge of big changes. Environmental issues have been ignored for a long time and they are still being somehow ignored. At some point, there will be a breakpoint.
There are plenty of masterplan proposals for NYC created by innumerous architects and they all have relevant and interesting ideas. ARO, Bjarke Ingels, SCAPE and many others have introduced unique ideas and interventions on how to deal with similar problems.
There is not a customer in mind since this is more of a future masterplan but it can be used as a way to start a discussion about future cities; about future societies.
As I said before, there are lots of proposals on how to intervene on NYC. They all have great ideas that inspired and even helped on the creation of mine but the biggest difference is that most of them are still trying to stop the sea level rise instead of embracing it as I have done.
I studied many NYC climate predictions up to the year of 2100. As I started to design and define my goal to redefine Manhattan by 2050. It became the NYC 2050.
Diagrams, hand sketches, study models, digital models and collages.
An optimistic vision of how NYC can embrace an environmental issue and incorporate it as a way to introduce a better urban life!
This was my thesis for the conclusion of the B.Arch program at Cornell University and I had Professor Andrea Simitch and Professor Arthur Ovaska as my thesis advisors.
Technology has and will always be an important element for any society’s development, therefore, it will be critical to the development of such future masterplan.
The masterplan was conceptualized by studying the history of Manhattan's edge, the climate crisis predictions by the United States Landfalling Hurricane Probability Project, and several climate studies produced by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
The challenge was to create a visionary design thinking outside of the box but at the same time, maintaining a level of reality which makes the project possible to pursue.
I believe I took a unique approach going against the safe method of trying to save the city. In a way, the project is indeed saving the city by accepting the catastrophe. It is an optimistic way of compromising in favor of survival. Thus, I think it is worth sharing so to initiate a new kind of conversation about our future.
On this particular project, a big lesson that I am going to take with me is that not every problem needs to be a problem. Problems can be solutions! It is just a matter of perspectives.