James Piacentini

CARTOGRAPHER || DESIGNER || EDUCATOR
CV || LINKEDIN || CONTACT

MY WORK EXPLORES THE INTERSECTION OF:
URBAN SPACES || SOCIAL STRUCTURES || ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS

SELECTED WORK

TYPE

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CLIMATE_MIGRATION_MAP

WEB_MAP

2020

DESTRUCTIVE_INTERVENTIONS

RESEARCH

2018

ROME_ETERNAL_EVOLVING

RESEARCH

2017

Currently: Senior Map Designer at Mapbox; Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University; Founding Fellow at NYU Building Better Cities Collaborative

Previously: NYC Department of City Planning; Apple; Lincoln Center; architectural design in Rome, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City

I hold a Master of Architecture and a Master of Science in Urban Planning from Columbia University, 2020, and a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley, 2014.

4 CRISS_CROSS_CITY

TYPE: DESIGN

04/05/2020

4.1 - Speculations for an eco-futurist Hong Kong

4.2 - Ecologics of forestry and human settlements

4.3 - Lumber and forestry in China (including contested territories)

4.4 - Global to urban scalar lumber potential

4.5 - Project growth phase 1 (2020-2030)

4.6 - Project growth phase 2 (2030-2040)

4.7 - Project growth phase 3 (2040-2050)

4.8 - Urban armature in Hong Kong

4.9 - Architectural programming and structural systems

4.10 - Street level view

Criss-Cross City is a modular and expandable lumber armature that extends across Hong Kong. Located in the Pearl River Delta, Hong Kong is the world’s largest megalopolis, home to over 120 Million people, and an area expected to nearly double in density by 2050. Tapping into the region’s massive eucalyptus and bamboo plantations, the project hypothesizes a flexible yet robust platform to imagine a new urban form of living. This multi-scalar approach re-thinks the relationships between forestry and urban life by drawing on global and regional lumber practices to produce urban interventions. The infrastructural scaffold operates within and above the existing city using a hexagonal organizational logic that connects towers to bridges to platforms, providing new relationships between city and ground.