Public Picks Grand Army Plaza Design

401_1209127814.jpgThe people have spoken, choosing a design for Grand Army Plaza that connects it to Prospect Park, taking Flatbush Avenue underground and making pedestrians the primary users of the space.

"Canopy," a plan submitted by a team of French designers, took people’s choice in the "Reinventing Grand Army Plaza" competition, sponsored by the Design Trust for Public Space. It was also selected last month by competition jurors as one of two top designs.

"Canopy" is one of few submissions that actually connects the plaza with the park. Like last year’s Grand Army Plaza Coalition proposal, it at least takes a stab at dealing with area-wide traffic management issues — a major consideration for any workable redesign.

While raising the profile of the project and drawing the attention of thousands of Brooklynites, it’s unknown how much of an impact the competition will have on the eventual design. The Brooklyn Paper reports:

"The contest wasn’t intended for a design to be constructed,"
sniffed Scott Gastel, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation,
which is conducting traffic studies as a first step in its own plan to
fix the plaza.

"The competition has produced some very interesting concepts, which
we will bear in mind as we continue to think about the future of Grand
Army Plaza," he said. "We’re still looking into the designs [to
evaluate their feasibility]."

  • Dave H.

    Typo?

    “Canopy,” a plan submitted by a team of French designers, took people’s choice in the “Reinventing Grand Army Plaza” competition, sponsored by the Design Trust for Public Space.

    maybe “THE people’s choice”

  • It’s too bad that they didn’t have a competition for designs that could possibly be implemented.

    The winning design that puts Flatbush Ave. underground is just a distraction from the real world. Or maybe it is Brooklyn’s answer to Boston’s Big Dig.

  • poncho

    great they propose turning GAP into a landfill that got hit by a tornado. what a terrible design, is there a way to dis-bar landscape architects?

  • lee

    I don’t think the plan calls for flatbush ave to be buried, it will still be street level but with canopies over it. at least, that is how i read it.

  • J. Mork

    Should we be hopeful about the DOT’s study? The fountain area is already a lovely place to hang out. The main problem is that there’s too many cars.

  • Phil

    It’s not going to happen. All much ado about nothing.

  • Michael1

    I like it. It’s not a bad idea. Though I wouldn’t like to see this plan be implemented, I think it pitches some good ideas for an even stronger plan. I don’t know if making Flatbush underground is even possible because that might conflict with the IRT already downstairs. Though I like the roundabout for the intersection of Flatbush and Eastern. I think that will greatly improve safety and traffic by directing all the vechicles to one centralized intersection rather than having cars split off left and right, as it is currently. Secondly, where’s the grass? I know that a lot of space will be freed but it’s nice to visually see what can be done with that space rather than having it look like a gigantic parking lot in the plans. It looks like someone moved the Monument into the middle of nowhere almost. Third, but certainly not last, it took me a couple of minutes to realize those light orange lines across the streets are crosswalks (I had to look at the the northernmost tip of Grand Army Plaza where Flatbush enters). That brings up a concern of the crosswalks with respect to the width of the street. They’re going to have to put some pedestrian refuge in the middle of Flatbush (North and South of GAP), one on Eastern and one on Vanderbuilt. Overall, great job but you don’t build the first plan you see.

  • pari

    please add pics

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