MICA sponsors NLA Future Streets Programme
MICA is a programme sponsor for New London Architecture’s research study ‘Future Streets’ which officially launched last night.
The new research seeks to investigate the impact and opportunity of technology and new mobility by looking at how multiple technological developments and new strategies help to promote new street-based mobility solutions. The research focuses on strategies that are multi-modal, socially inclusive, accessible and environmentally sustainable.
Future Streets is presented across three media – a three-month exhibition, a research paper and a half-day conference. Featured within the ‘Future Streets’ research paper is MICA’s recent future visioning studies for the city of Baton Rouge in Louisiana.
Baton Rouge is the state capital of Louisiana and, like many similar mid-size American cities, it suffers from a lack of competitive opportunities in harnessing potential from emerging technologies compared to larger metropolises. At the same time, the city is at the front line of climate emergency.
MICA’s studies, entitled ‘5 Steps Forwards’, explore a series of growth scenarios for the city over a projected 30-year period to test the phased implementation of the recognised 5 automation levels of autonomous vehicles.
In conjunction with automation, it is anticipated that up to 2 million people from the wider Louisiana region could relocate to cities like Baton Rouge to escape coastal flooding caused by climate change. In a city predominantly designed for the car, the challenges to sustainable approaches are significant, and yet the urgency is real.
As part of the ‘Future Streets’ research, the NLA will be hosting a conference at its headquarters in Bloomsbury on Thursday 28th November. MICA Director Gavin Miller will be one of the speakers at the conference, where he will share insight into MICA’s Baton Rouge studies as well as some of the firm’s other masterplanning and public realm work.
The ‘Future Streets’ exhibition runs from November 2018 to January 2019 at the Building Centre in Bloomsbury.
To find out more about ‘Future Streets’, click here.
