Searching for Superpublics

Searching for Superpublics explores current directions in the design of New York City’s public space. The work on view introduces a search for additions to city life that overcome the boundaries of neighborhoods, communities, boroughs, and typical public spaces. While not necessarily square, central, or as lush as some of the parks and plazas that predate them, the selected projects are super. They exceed the boundaries of traditional public spaces and neighborhoods by working together across the city, inventing new tools for participation, and occupying resources and infrastructure. In a city as dense as New York, these projects emerge as opportunistic and strategic sites of intervention that weave through the city’s fabric.

This search is framed through a series of questions: What is our current era of public space? Who designs and maintains it? The exhibition brings together eight primary projects and numerous other examples to explore these radical shifts between specific public spaces and the interstitial public realm at large. Each emerged through conversations with communities across the five boroughs, with stakeholders ranging from city agencies to designers, architects, planners, and activists. While by no means definitive—the curators invite agreement and critique—certain formal and organizational tendencies emerged along the way.

The exhibition documents a search through found materials, each presented as the outcome of past planning, current conditions, and ideas for future use. Featured projects are categorized under three umbrellas: Connectors, Temporals, and Constellations.

Curators: Ivi Diamantopoulou, AIA, and Jaffer Kolb, Co-founders, New Affiliates
Graphic Designer: Topos Graphics