URBAN DESIGN STUDIO I: SUMMER -1996

Industrial Park Production Plant, Bethpage, Long Island:
TRANSFORMATIONS:
Lot and Block

Position Statement
Armatures, and the traditional block and lot pattern of the suburban grid can form the basis for a new paradigm of ex-urban development.

Site Conditions/Opportunities
The New York State Regional Development Report for 1995 identified Hicksville, Long Island, as a probable ex-urban center for New York City for the coming century. The project site encompasses approximately 600 acres of land once occupied by the Grumman-Northrop, Corporation, one of the largest aircraft and military defense contractors in the United States. Thus, the former industrial site, due to its size, and relationship surrounding communities of both Hicksville and Bethpage provides and opportunity to study how a new ex-urban center might develop. First, the strategy attempts to use urban armatures as an organizing principle on the project site at a variety of levels-- the relationship of its constituent components, the immediate community, and the greater regional/metropolitan areas. Secondly, the strategy proposes to transform the relationship of the residential dwelling with the traditional block and lot pattern of the suburban grid.

Context of Probes
The first probe examines at the junction of the two urban armatures, where multiple layers of activity occur while occupying the same general area. The layers include a Multi-modal transportation center, business, commercial, multiple-use facilities, and residential development at a variety of densities.

The second probe studies the relationship of a new higher density residential development with the traditional suburban grid, the existing site conditions, and surrounding community. The probe clarifies multiple levels of site history, occupancy and activity.

Effects of Urban Strategy
The urban armatures yield a means of organizing and providing linkages with disparate portions of the project site, its existing structures, and the surrounding community for present and future development.

The organization of the project site around the junction of the two armatures provides a location for the proposed urban center with multi-modal transportation access, is pedestrian in scale, and embraces coincident multiple levels of activity.

The use of a higher density residential housing types, and alternate methods of site intervention offers greater open space for the ex-urban community, while maintaining some of the characteristics of the traditional suburban enclave.