Vinyl on the Crash Blocks

When I was out the other night, I enjoyed the simple design intervention on the security barriers made from concrete blocks and jersey barriers around the Empire State Building. This was a welcome addition and customization of the NYPD Urban Design.




With some nylon covers and a handful of zip ties, they have created more a sense of place than the bland, white chunks of concrete. These are low-cost materials that are easy to install. Hiring a designer may have cost nearly as much as the fabrication and installation.

Paint the Town

Transportation engineers have long been painters, although the markings they have applied in white and yellow are not something anyone has ever recognized as artwork. Of course, they never intended for their functional markings to be a visual art (although their engineering work can be as much art as science at times). I find it interesting to note the pallet they use has been expanding in recent years, and our cities are gaining a little more colorful accent as a result. In some cases, transportation agencies are even using paint to create public art in places that have traditionally been mundane or outright unsightly.

Here's a quick rundown of the color pallet used for functional markings, a note about incorporating art to mitigate the unattractive spaces sometimes created by transportation, and some discussion of the limitations of paint.