UDw.

and it's urban design week in nyc!

it's a festival started by the institute for urban design that will go on from today / sept.15 / to sept.20.

"Urban Design Week is a new public festival created to engage New Yorkers in the fascinating and complex issues of the public realm, and to celebrate the streetscapes, sidewalks, and public spaces at the heart of city life. Through an open-call ideas competition and a rich roster of discussions, tours, screenings, workshops, and events across the five boroughs, UDW will highlight the fact that cities are made by collective effort, and that each of us can play a part."

from urban design week website

there will be a lot of crazy/very interesting events all over the city and I still haven't exactly decided which ones I will actually go to. but I've been to the kick-off event on monday night (pecha kucha night at le poisson rouge) 

"dimensions of urban design".

for those of you that like me before going to this event (shame on me), don't know what pecha kucha means, it is a presentation format in which speakers will show 20 slides for 20 seconds each (20x20). this keeps the presentation on a fast pace (aka. not boring people to death) and allows more speakers to have the exact same amount of time to present their ideas. 

it was personally the first time for me to attend such kind of talk and I thought it was great! super interesting projects were shown, very different from one another, from the new snohetta building for the wtc site to a virtual tour of the bronx showing what's next for the borough.

hope the full presentation will be posted online soon by the pecha kucha ny chapter. I'll keep an eye on it and will link the video/presentation as soon as it will come out!