During the past six weeks, I have learned about the unique power of computational tools to simulate urban designs and assess design metrics. Employing tools such as Grasshopper and Rhino allows us to evaluate the "desirable" metrics for built designs such as comfort, walkability, etc. And while we did also measure effects of a building on open space sunlight and "comfort", we never used these tools to see the effects of different single building designs on the surrounding buildings. I found this surprising, as it came to feel as though designs were made in vacuums, only focusing on how to optimize quantifiable results regardless of any effects. This project was conceived as a result of these observations, in an effort to develop and defend a tool that would do just this and more.
As a member of the Brooklyn community who just watched a beloved institution located in a historic building (now demolished) be displaced, I believe that the implementation of a tool like this would benefit residents and developers of the city alike. Locally, it would empower community members to be active and informed on what is going on in their neighborhood. More than that however, I believe that it would also reduce any potential animosity towards development projects, given that local residents would have hard proof of how they would or wouldn't be affected. Finally, it could encourage developers to work more in harmony with the existing built environment, rather than building projects that possibly nullify existing positive attributes of a previously built structure. All together, this would foster better developer-resident relationships and happier communities with more committed community members, which together results in more vibrant neighborhoods.
On one level, I understand why this hasn't been developed thus far: it takes a lot of time and money to develop each of these tools, and there may not be resources available right now for this (especially given the events of the past few years). Not to mention, I am sure that potentially adding another hurdle to the development approval process would be fiercely fought by developers themselves, so that could also be a reason for this not being pursued thus far–-even if the resources have been available. That said, I maintain that this tool is not only worth the time, money, and grief from developers, but it is also imperative to the future of NYC (and cities elsewhere as well).
For now, I have created NBNYC to asses metrics I found to be important as a result of the past six weeks including summmer shade on surrounding buildings, winter sun on surrounding buildings, average age of buildings in an area, and estimated average rental and sale price increases for the surrounding neighborhood. The true benefit of this tool however is that it is not limited just to these metrics, and once the functionality is created it can easily continue to be added to in order to reflect the growing and changing communities it has been built to protect. As a result, I argue that it is high time for a tool like New Builds NYC to get the funding and support necessary for it to be developed and implemented, and that NYC would be an ideal test city for such a tool.