From Fast Company: “Most metropolis’ are so busy building the future that they don’t have time to re-think the past. Not so with Seoul, South Korea. In 2003, the city demolished a downtown freeway to restore an ancient stream that once flowed beneath the thoroughfare. More than 75% of the scrap material from the demolition was re-used to reconstruct and rehabilitate the stream banks and create a commercial corridor.”
:: image via Fast Company
A couple of additional images from a great photo gallery via Inhabitat
:: images via Inhabitat
Finally, as a companion to the reconfiguration of Korean street to stream, a video ‘Inspired Ethonomics’ from Fast Company showing the relationship of streets and public space in urban areas.
Providence, RI uncovered the Providence River in the ’90s — for decades the river had been paved over and called “the world’s widest bridge”. Now it’s the Providence Riverwalk and Waterplace Park, with walks, lovely bridges, steps, lawns. Waterfire, the invention of a RI School of Design student, runs on summer nights: black boats tend burning pyres on the river as people gather on the shores to watch the water and fire. It’s a far cry from when the river was covered with roadway, and was just a way to get from the flats of downtown Providence to the steep hill edging the East Side.
It’s a cool/hot event. BTW
Barnaby Evans is a Brown graduate (not RISD).