H3 was selected as finalist in the Forum for Urban Design’s international competition to create a Bicycle Master Plan for Red Hook – one of Brooklyn’s most transit challenged neighborhoods.

The competition brief called for the development a comprehensive bicycle network, streetscape program and wayfinding system, as well as propose a design for a bicycle storage loft at the area’s only subway station. Ultimately, the vision for the competition was to address some of the neighborhood’s biggest problems: accessibility, transportation and social equality.

Red Hook is generally underserved by public transit and cut off from most other neighborhoods by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, so there is a heavier-than-normal reliance on cars. Because of the abundance of heavy industrial uses mixed among the residential neighborhoods, it tends to be inhospitable to bicycle travel.

H3 envisioned a three-fold solution: a bike loft at the MTA Smith Street/Ninth Street Station; a bike-pedestrian bridge crossing over Hamilton Avenue beneath the heavily-traveled Brooklyn Queens Expressway; and an innovative bikescape that will integrate into the Brooklyn streetscape of cars, bikes and pedestrians allowing a seamless traffic hierarchy to exist.

The concept that drove the H3 scheme was that good urban design, coherent planning, and thoughtful architecture are all necessary elements to create great neighborhoods that are vital, active and safe for all its users.

CLIENT: Forum for Urban Design
COMPLETION: 2009