20 years, 20 champions. Each instrumental in Design Trust's lasting impact on NYC's public realm. Each another journey.

Join us to celebrate our champions, who have tirelessly been working to improve the daily lives of New Yorkers for two decades. Jumpstart the next 20 years of urban innovation by buying a ticket to the gala today.

Hear each champion's story, one every day here on our blog, culminating with a grand celebration on October 14, at Christie's. While enjoying a festive evening of music by AndrewAndrew, cocktails by Templeton Rye, custom photo shoots, hors d'oeuvres and a silent auction of art and design objects, you'll also meet the 20/20 Public Space Champions in person.

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New York City's streetscape is comprised of over 20,000 paved lane miles – approximately 1.2 billion square feet – or an area nearly double the size of Manhattan. It's vital to have guidelines in place to effectively manage this vast inventory of public space.

After two-years of research from 2003 to 2005, we released a comprehensive set of best practices for making NYC's streets, sidewalks, public utilities, storm water management, and urban landscaping more environmentally responsible and sustainable.

Hillary Brown, our Architecture Fellow for the project, played a pivotal role in developing the High Performance Infrastructure Guidelines. The study addresses air-quality improvement, mitigation of the urban heat island effect, noise pollution, hydrologic disruption from development, ecological and vegetation health, and overall health and quality-of-life opportunities, as well as life cycle cost effectiveness.

The Infrastructure Guidelines, together with our High Performance Building Guidelines (1999), led to the passing of Local Law 86 in New York City, and heavily influenced Mayor Bloomberg's sustainability plan for the city (PlaNYC) as well as the Street Design Manual produced by the NYC Department of Transportation.

Let's start with a fill-in-the-blank question. Public space is vital because…?

Hillary: It constitutes the human commons. A precious shared resource that we must jointly manage.

How did working with the Design Trust influence your practice?

Hillary: It taught me to value interdisciplinary input. My work has also branched out to champion broader challenges related to public space. As a relatively recently-minted full-time academic, I seek to define the parameters of sustainability unique to infrastructural services such as energy, transport, water, sanitation, and waste handling.

The thread running through my current research and writing has been “scalability”—broadening the application of ecologically-informed principles to the human environment.

Will our civilization be successful in scaling up sustainability? What are the trends awaiting us in the future?

Hillary: Future projects operating in a carbon-constrained world will rely on upon both green heat and power production. Designed with reliance on the workings of natural systems, infrastructure assets will also have to be constructed to be resilient in the face of climate uncertainties.

Also, well-engineered systems must be contextually designed, embedded in social and cultural contexts, and preferably also serving educational or recreational functions. Holistic and integrative planning and problem solving will foster such public works.

With the absence of federal leadership in rebuilding critical infrastructure, I argue this is best undertaken at the state and local level.

The future seems be all about maximizing limited resources. What would you recommend for our reading list?

Hillary: My most recent book, Next Generation Infrastructure: Principles for Post-Industrial Public Works! Using a case study approach featuring exemplary projects, it's a brainstorming on how bridges, dams, water-treatment facilities, highways and power plants, etc. can perform more than single functions and return multiple co-benefits.

And let's talk about your future. What's next?

Hillary: MIT Press will bring out a follow up volume with a working title of Infrastructure Ecologies: New Development Models for Emerging Economies. It proposes an imperative collaborative, cross-sector framework for handling environmental degradation, energy poverty, climate impacts, and improved civil society partnerships that need to guide the massive global investments anticipated over the next several decades.

As an alternative to western models, the book argues for a radical shift from “fragmented and silo-ed” approaches towards integrated and cross-sector planning at the strategic levels and in real site implementation. Culturally appropriate use of natural resources and adoption of hybrid systems, both distributed and centralized, are also stressed.

In addition to the wide readership of professionals, policy-makers, financiers and investors, this book is targeted to graduate and undergraduate design and engineering students as well. I anticipate that not only future research, but also ongoing consulting projects will build on the theories of the book, advancing projects and strategies for practical, sustainable solutions to infrastructure deficits in the most underserved countries.

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Learn more about our Greening Infrastructure in the Public Right-of-Way project and the resulting High Performance Infrastructure Guidelines.