InstituteforPublicArchitecture

Thank you for joining us on June 16th and June 22nd for the first Modeling Community Visions for a Future Without the BQE (MCV) workshops of 2026 at Pave Academy Charter School @pave_redhook and the Van Alen Institute @van_alen. These workshops ask: What If? What if we didn’t have to accept the BQE as a fact of life but a choice to be questioned? What If the future BQE, with freight moved to rail and water, were to become a tree-lined street rather than a six-lane highway that divides and pollutes neighborhoods, what would communities want to do with this newly available ‘land bank'?”⁠
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Participants responded by modifying large scale physical models of the urban fabric along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) in Red Hook/Carroll Gardens. Using a removable kit of parts including buildings, landscapes, and alternatives to the highway, residents worked together to design their future neighborhoods. Their proposals included housing typologies at various scales with retail, industry, schools, libraries, and community spaces along tree-lined streets with resilient landscapes. ⁠
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Many thanks to MCV Team Leader, architect and urban designer Marcus Wilford (IPA Fellow, Fall 2020) @marcuswilford and to our generous collaborators at Pave Academy Charter School, Red Hook West Resident Association, and Van Alen Institute for making these workshops accessible and possible! Special thanks to NYIT School of Architecture and Design’s Fabrication Lab @nyit.architecture and amazing graduate students.⁠
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📸 Photos by Jeannette Sordi. ⁠

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