Long Island, that interminable tract of suburban sprawl outside Manhattan, has fallen on hard times. Stripped of jobs and young people—and, perhaps soon, its natural resources—Long Island offers a sliver of the American Dream it promised decades ago. One group of architects has a radical (and elegantly simple) vision for resurrecting the place: Make it less of a suburb, selectively letting some areas hollow out, while building up density elsewhere.
The proposal, by Park Office and the Network Architecture Lab at Columbia University, is one of seven winners in the 2010 Build a Better Burb competition, announced yesterday. The contest asked architects and designers to re-imagine Long Island as an economically and environmentally viable 21st century hub. Other winners suggest supplanting office parks with organic farms; sequestering carbon; and creating regional business centers by pooling neighborhood resources. The full list of entries is available here.