Main Content
The project employs research, visual documentation, and design to explore opportunities for connecting people to nature within the built, densely populated urban environment. While the concept of green space is very vast, this thesis focuses on a garden typology, situated in the context of urban green space. Photographic documentation and analysis of “successful” green spaces and gardens in New York City and Switzerland serves to inform what makes for “good design” in urban green spaces, and apply findings to the context of the urban public garden.
The elements identified in this thesis as the fabric of “good design” are applied to a design exercise of the urban public garden in the context of a courtyard at the Kingsborough Houses public housing complex in Brooklyn, New York. The design serves as a visual application and extrapolation of findings, taking the elements of what makes for good design from abstraction to a working concept.
Looking forward, the ideas explored in this thesis project are a lifelong learning process, and the urban public courtyard garden design application is but a starting point for exploration and future work towards the goal of designing urban green spaces to connect urban dwellers to nature.