Experiments In Motion

A Year in Motion

An overview of the first year of Experiments in Motion, a partnership between Audi of America and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

Roads Cover 4.8 square miles of Manhattan

Howler and Yoon, winners of the Audi Urban Future Award imagine a NYC where roads become soccer fields and solar panels.

Experiments in Motion Featured in Surface Magazine’s American Influence Issue

NYC MTA Catalogue of Used and Abandoned Spaces

The importance of the subway system in New York City cannot be underestimated. This study compares the amount of space in the entire subway system with spaces that are either inaccessible or abandoned - a complex system of spaces and possibilities. Timothy Bell exhibited this project along with architectural renderings along this September as part of the exhibition “Experiments in Motion”. Every project in the exhibition started with the question - what could these transportation space be used for in the future?

Eco Drones   |   Christopher Geist

By capitalizing on the FAA Modernization and Reform Act, which created guidelines for the introduction of unmanned aircraft, drones could be introduced to Manhattan. Free of the traditional limitations of the street grid, the drones’ paths could evenly spread seeds throughout the city, thereby bridging the ecological gaps within the urban fabric. Better able to mitigate the urban context, the drones will do what natural processes could not: re-introduce plant life to the city and aid in sustainability.

Street Life   |   Paul Tran and Shuning Zhao

If technology evolves to allow for interior personal vehicles, it will change the boundaries of transportation. Rather than remaining limited to today’s traditional networks, urban mobility can exist within the walls of the building itself. Neighborhoods could exist within one megablock, complete with its own interior system of transportation. The new vehicular system could move both horizontally and vertically, dissolving today’s “convenience” of the grid and creating neighborhoods within neighborhoods.

Tourist Trap   |   Prathyusha Viddam

The most efficient path in a city as dense as Manhattan is not necessarily the shortest route. Tourist Trap suggests a system in which to both highlight that path and to encourage more seamless transfers between modes of transportation. Motion sensing LEDs are embedded within the ground at heavily trafficked subway stations, tracing the fast pace of local New Yorkers. The ghost path left behind remains long enough to guide passengers from the next train to the streets and buses aboveground, simultaneously leading them around meandering tourists.

Block Party   |   Timothy Bell

In a city as dense as New York, unused space is rare. Block Party maximizes the potential of abandoned space in the city by exploring the hybridization of infrastructure and building. Vacant and unused portions of subway stations are reclaimed for bike storage, capitalizing on New York’s initiatives to encourage commuters’ bike and subway use. During rush hour, the storage units remain compacted under the street, but expand to double their size during off hours. By taking over the street, Block Party creates a new landscape that responds to both traffic patterns and infrastructure.

Experiments in Motion captured on film

The exhibition is open and waiting for you to check it out! The installation marks the end of the first year of Experiments in Motion, a partnership between Audi of America and Columbia GSAPP through the Audi Urban Future Initiative. The exhibit, located at the Essex Street Warehouse in New York City, is free and open to the public through September 24.

More info here.

All photos taken by Collin Erickson.

360 degrees of the Lowline

Today is the last day to catch the Imagining the Lowline and Experiments in Motion exhibitions. The installation marks the end of the first year of Experiments in Motion, a partnership between Audi of America and Columbia GSAPP through the Audi Urban Future Initiative. The exhibit is located at the Essex Street Warehouse in New York City

More info here.