If you walk away from a sandcastle it won’t be there tomorrow. At Right Angle Studio we believe the same thing will happen if a city is left untended. That is why those of us with the capacity to improve our cities should do so proactively, and why from time to time we must step back into places that have fallen to ruin, upcycling them from their original use.

For the second event in our Better Cities series we were proud to be joined by two of the most positive, interesting and downright fun people in New York: Robert Hammond (co-founder of the High Line) and Dan Barasch (co-founder of the Lowline). On a Thursday evening in April, we discussed how their city-crowning regeneration concepts were developed and perhaps more importantly, how they rallied citizens, government and business behind the cause. We were also joined by Rachel Neeson (Neeson Murcutt Architects) and Adam Haddow (SJB and The Architect’s Bookshop) for a local lens on the thrills and spills of upcycling in a city where a lot of people complain about change.

As if that wasn’t enough, Dan Barasch signed copies of his new book, Ruin and Redemption in Architecture, released in 2019 by Phaidon, in what was a perfect conclusion to an evening of great thoughts and good times.