“If the goal of designing the urban surface is to increase its capacity to support and diversify activities in time – even activities that cannot be determined in advance – then a primary design strategy is to extend its continuity while diversifying its range of services.” – Alex Wall

Manhattan County with a population density of 70,595 people per square mile is one of the densest cities on earth. The city system overlaps transit, open spaces, commercial and residential, and the public and private. The joined experience of temporal and historic landscapes is vital to the vibrant evolving urban environment. At the same time, the need for spaces of rest and reflection are paramount to the well being of Manhattanites. They serve not only for personal use, but as locations for community, business, and healthy urban growth. Interventions of temporal instigative spaces bridging these systems can strengthen and create opportunities for urban development.

Moments of urban decay within densely populated neighborhoods such as vacant underutilized lots and spaces in transition are part of a cycle of urban renewal that sustains the vivacity of the city. Many of these lots stay vacant for years, creating pockets of crime and filth which negatively impact local residents and business owners. The Instigative landscape project will spark a constructive urban ecology that supplements existing productive systems by appropriating these lots and developing public installations.

The instigative landscape project will comprise of a three-part competition that evolves from conceptualization to realization of systemically appropriate interventions. We will begin with a single site that will grow into a network of summer parks which promote community, economic, and environmental revitalization and growth. The competition will give artists, architects, landscape architects, or designers the platform to enact their vision as well as an urban community and landscape development.