Design Excellence

• 4.

  https://21visions.urbandesignforum.org/design-excellence#4Share

  Ensure that every neighborhood has the right to an excellent and vibrant public realm.

  • Challenge: Access to parks and open spaces is severely limited and unequal in communities of color, averaging 7.9 acres of parks in predominantly Black neighborhoods compared to the average 29.8 acres in predominantly white neighborhoods.

  • Improve maintenance of the public realm in neighborhoods lacking Business Improvement Districts or conservancies.

    Read 7 Ideas

    • Marshal public funding into those neighborhoods most in need through baseline funding, guided by indicators that assess access to essential neighborhood opportunities (See Complete Neighborhoods for more details).

    • Fund and embed a designer or planner in every existing under-resourced BID to equip them with the expertise to oversee capital grants and projects.

    • Deepen investments in the NYC Plaza Program, the Community Parks Initiative, and Neighborhood 360° to improve public space citywide.

    • Encourage the creation of neighborhood-wide stewardship organizations, rather than corridor-specific BIDs or park-specific conservancies.

    • Drawing on the success of the Central Park Conservancy Institute for Urban Parks, explore how a similar model can support funding under-resourced BIDs as well as community development corporations in different neighborhoods.

    • Produce a ten-year funding plan for every new public project to ensure long-term maintenance of beautiful streetscapes, parks and open spaces.

    • Explore zoning bonuses to capture maintenance funding for the public realm and subways station improvements from new development. (See Good Growth for more details).

  • Consolidate leadership of city agencies that oversee work in the public realm.

    Read 2 Ideas

    • Create an Office of the Public Realm that coordinates the delivery and maintenance of public amenities and infrastructure between city agencies.

    • Recruit a Deputy Mayor for Neighborhood Development to oversee housing, economic development, small business, public space and transportation.

  • Invest in long-term community engagement infrastructure for every neighborhood, not just those navigating rezonings.

    Read 5 Ideas

    • Drawing on London’s Public Practice program, embed design professionals in community boards to provide ongoing technical support, while collecting research and sharing back best practices with city agencies. (See Community Engagement for more details.)

    • Strengthen and invest in community-based organizations that meet people where they are rather than having them come to you.

    • Expand the participatory budgeting process as an instrument to support better democratic representation and greater funds to the communities that need it the most.

    • Embrace low-tech and high-tech tools to hear from communities typically excluded from the planning process like working class parents and younger residents.

    • Provide centralized, physical spaces for co-designing and community planning that are accessible by foot in each Community Board District.

  Case Study

  London – Public Practice

• 5.

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  Embrace design expertise at every stage of planning to deliver excellent public projects.

  • Challenge: New York City needs to repair aging infrastructure like the subway system, highway network, and public housing, and consider new building typologies like climate-conscious development.

  • Appoint a committee of Design Advocates to act as the mayor’s brain trust for major citywide design and development initiatives.

    Read 4 Ideas

    • Drawing on London’s Mayor of Design Advocates, shape a diverse committee of civic design organizations and private sector experts from firms of varying sizes, backgrounds, and neighborhoods that will advise on plans for public projects before Request for Proposals are issued.

      Case Study:

      London – Design Advocates

    • Task the committee to develop guidelines and strategies to ensure age- and gender-inclusive projects, racial and neighborhood equity, and design for all physical abilities.

    • Require the committee to review outreach and inclusion strategies for procurement processes in order to reach greater participation from emerging and M/WBE design and construction firms.

    • Task the committee to explore sites to pilot flexible zoning approaches and design standards to shape streetscapes and neighborhoods more intentionally, using indicators of active design, wellness, and accessibility.

  • Create a culture of paid competitions to invite new and untested ideas.

    Read 3 Ideas

    • Create a Pre-Design Phase for city-led projects where designers are reasonably compensated to generate ideas for project planning, procurement, prototyping, and pre-fabrication.

    • Drawing on Germany’s International Building Exhibitions, launch competitions on major building challenges such as rising climate emissions or housing costs. Competitions should aim to unite siloed agencies, drive innovative policy responses and pilot new building types, and should properly compensate their participants according to industry best practices.

    • Marshal partnerships between philanthropic organizations and city agencies to leverage philanthropic support for addressing neighborhood-specific design challenges like shading infrastructure for heat-vulnerable communities.

  • Accelerate the design and construction process by fixing burdensome oversight.

    Read 5 Ideas

    • Reform oversight methods from the Comptroller and the Office of Management and Budget for capital project approval to accelerate project timelines and avoid inefficiencies.

    • Reform RFP criteria to more heavily weigh design excellence, even on non-design-led projects.

    • Value quality and expertise over price by authorizing “Progressive Design Build” that facilitates greater involvement of the design-build team during the earliest stages of planning.

    • For Design-Build projects, implement an Architect-Led or Design-Led process to ensure that design vision and quality are maintained throughout the process.

    • Integrate processes and schedule management software across all capital agencies.

  Case Study

  Germany – International Building Exhibitions

• 6.

  https://21visions.urbandesignforum.org/design-excellence#6Share

  Empower minority- and women-owned businesses to build a greater share of our city.

  • Challenge: Challenged by the city’s complex procurement process, M/WBE firms receive less than 5% of the contracting dollars, largely due to the inability to compete with larger and white-owned design firms that have greater resources and time.

  • Minimize barriers of entry to encourage new projects from diverse actors.

    Read 3 Ideas

    • Set up a platform with the Department of Design and Construction that develops joint venture partnerships between small M/WBE firms and larger companies on public projects, providing insurance from established firms and fresh ideas from smaller companies.

    • Reduce barriers for small businesses and M/WBEs to compete for public contracts by allowing Owner- and Contractor-Controlled Insurance (OCIP/CCIP).

    • Invest in design incubators or building science institutes to cultivate design experimentation while encouraging equity and inclusion of small and M/WBE companies.

Advisors

These recommendations are authored by Urban Design Forum. We thank our advisors who provided helpful insights, suggestions, and guidance throughout the working group process.