Urban Arteries for GOOD magazine and CEOs for Cities

  • Project Date: 2009

Urban Arteries

GOOD magazine asked IDEO to take on a design challenge at the annual CEOs for Cities conference in March 2009. With two other design teams, we presented our solutions to a major civic challenge submitted by CEOs for Cities network partners.

Aggregating the concerns articulated in Cleveland, Memphis, Miami, Manhattan, and Buffalo, the IDEO team identified similarities to their home base – San Francisco – and created the following brief:

Urban Arteries: Separation as the New Connectedness

How might we recreate infrastructural dividers in our cities as a distinct advantage, engaging people not separating them, celebrating diversity while encouraging interconnectedness? IDEO will examine this common urban theme, proposing a design framework using San Francisco’s Market Street as the object of investigation.

IDEO conducted a three-day design charette consisting of design research, brainstorming, rapid prototyping, and concept sketching. Our presentation to the CEOs for Cities conference included design principles encouraging a human-centered design methodology instead of the typical urban design “grand gesture” planning, a provocative method for rapid concept development, and a framework with three design interventions applied to San Francisco’s Market Street.

Download the presentation PDF