The Future of the New York Metropolitan Region: The Fourth Regional Plan exhibit ran from July through November at the AIA New York Center for Architecture and allowed visitors to explore the Fourth Regional Plan in exhibit form. It featured designers imagining how the 61 policy and planning recommendations from the Fourth Plan could reshape the way our region looks, feels and moves. On the opening afternoon, a line stretched from the front door all the way down LaGuardia Place.

“After five years of work, releasing this plan last November was exhilarating,” said RPA Executive Vice President Juliette Michaelson. Juliette went on to introduce Senior Design Fellow Rob Lane, who worked with a number of partners to help integrate design into the Fourth Plan.

“Most of the work in the hallway would probably be considered illustration: there is a lot of design intention in those drawings,” Rob Lane told the crowd. ​“But they were largely done to illustrate how the 4th Plan would play out in different kinds of places, not test the 4th Plan.”

To round out opening remarks, Ellen Neises, Executive Director of PennPraxis and adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania PennDesign reflected on working on the Fourth Plan, and how it pushed her and her team to think bigger. ​“This was probably one of the most challenging projects I’ve done in my career,” Neises laughs. ​“But it was also very rewarding to think how we can ultimately create a new reality that will improve our region.”