Book Description

We Build The City features a selection of the exemplary infrastructure, public realm and civic building projects developed during New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's administration under Commissioner David Burney's groundbreaking Department of Design + Construction Excellence (D+CE) program. This publication celebrates the DDC's commitment to the idea that design matters and that great design reinvigorates public spaces and, ultimately, transforms people's lives. The DDC has been lauded for its fresh approach to facilitating innovative and collaborative architecture and urban planning solutions and improving public buildings, spaces and communities with a focus on design that reflects important key values: education and culture, health and safety, and diversity and opportunity. The D+CE program has offered dynamic design and construction strategies that have inspired some of the best architects and engineers in the world--and given the city's small firms--the opportunity to work with the DDC to reimagine and reshape the built environment. From the Queen's Botanical Garden, Mariner's Harbor Library, Brooklyn Children's Museum and the Bronx Museum of the Arts to Madison Avenue, Houston Street, Columbus Circle, the Central Park Precinct and PSAC II, the DDC and its pioneering D+CE initiative has helped to transform all five boroughs of the great City of New York. Highlighting the work of numerous talented design and construction firms, We Build The City showcases a collection of some the most notable public projects developed and built under the acclaimed D+CE program. Each featured project--whether large- or small-scale, visible or underground--has contributed to the improvement of the city, building upon principles of creativity, sustainability, performance, efficiency and longevity. The publication includes detailed drawings and striking imagery that reveal the complex processes that have shaped one of the most active and successful design periods in NYC's history.