The recent construction of an I-95 HWY bridge over New Haven Harbor is a late demonstration of the dumb urban and traffic planning which has fated New Haven since the urban renewal horrors of the 1950ies. The Planning Department was then appropriately nicknamed “The Kremlin” in the vox populi. It is time that the “End of Urbanism” so poignantly documented by Prof Doug Rae’s study of NH is ended. The studio project is undertaken as an operative critique culminating with a New Urbanist proposal for the Quadri-Centenial Anniversary of New Haven’s Foundation in 2038.
The location of the city on one of the most spectacular Oceanside estuaries is now sadly only experienced when driving on the I 95 or looking down from an aeroplane. To remedy this catastrophic debility the Project Studio Masterplan forsees the future HWY bridge to cross the harbor between City Point and East Shore Park at once opening 400 acres of prime urban land for development notably for 4 New Urban Quarters and a new Civic Center facing the Harbor Bay.
The students’ projects will be located in a set masterplan. Each student will plan a typical mixed use urban block and a public building as well as the landscaping of the surrounding public spaces, in order to exercise the extraordinary range of typological and stylistic possibilities of Vernacular Building and Classical Architecture, of housing private and public activities.
The studio will visit exemplary shore side towns and villages in Europe like Luzern, Riva del Garda, Portofino.
