Architecture Commons^™

Waiting: Sidewalk Sheds And Urban Identity, Sukhmann Aneja

Architecture Thesis Prep

In New York City, a sidewalk shed is a structure that covers a sidewalk immediately adjacent to a site under construction in order to protect pedestrians from falling debris. There are currently about 9,000 sheds in the entire city, with a lifespan of about 300 days. In total, all of the sidewalk sheds take up about 1,000,000 feet of space.1 Their existence is unwanted but inevitable, and, over the last four decades, these sheds have become an integral part of the City’s identity. This thesis proposes an intervention that allows the shed to better engage with the general public, particularly …