Visions of Manhattan and the 1811 master plan

The city grid, which once served to organize the development of private real estate by providing access to land parcels, now has a more pressing role to play in making cities livable. Our reimagining of the grid starts from the premise that how we use public rights of way no longer meets the city’s needs, so we should transform the streets radically, dedicating them to pedestrians. Our idea has 2 major precedents: the Dutch woonerf and the Barcelona superblock. The shared street or woonerf has a continuous, curbless, textured surface, and through these cues and others (such as signage), nudges car drivers to conform to the speed of pedestrians using the same space.