Reimagining Cities
Rapid urbanization is putting a premium on open spaces. It’s a trend unlikely to change soon. The United Nations projects 70 percent of the world’s population will be city dwellers by 2050. With an urban future crowded by built-up and –out environments, how will cities live and breathe?
The answer, Co-CEO David Gensler argued at the New York Ideas festival and for Fast Company, is in designing new approaches to urban open spaces. With that, he introduced Gensler’s Town Square Initiative, a conceptual project undertaken by the firm’s 43 offices to re-imagine public gathering spaces. “The bottom line,” Gensler said, “is that open spaces invigorate cities. We need to reclaim them for the promotion of our humanity.”
Image: Gensler New York’s net-zero park proposal