A familiar sight in the Midwest and eastern regions of the United States mammatus clouds are pouch-like shapes that often appear during warm summer months, indicating strong storms. Hanging in cellular patterns underneath the base of clouds these mammatus formations occur as a grouping of lobe. Unequal- or similarly-sized pouches clump together and can vary in shape from isolated clusters to fields of mamma that spread over hundreds of kilometers, to being organized along lines running through the skies.

Although proposed as a design competition for the intersection of 4th Avenue and 9th Street we would like to argue that Brooklyn needs more exemplary urban visions of people and neighborhoods connected through pleasant public spaces, than the mere reconstruction of an intersection. Especially 4th Avenue, now purely used by anonymous speed devils, carries a promise to Brooklyn that is much larger than its current interpretation as industrial thoroughfare. Over the coming years this six-mile linear strip that connects Downtown Brooklyn and Bay Ridge through highly diverse areas as Gowanus, Park Slope and Sunset Park, will see a steady growth of residential developments along its sides.
The current thunder of 4th Avenue can be reinterpreted into a twenty-first century version of Olmsted and Vaux’s Parkway concept through the implementation of a lightweight mammatus cloud strip that stretches the full six miles from Atlantic Avenue to XXXX. Where the existing parkways are organized horizontally, we propose a vertical layering of traffic flows that starts below ground with the existing subway lines, with the vehicular road on the ground level, and topped by a floating linear canopy for pedestrians and cyclists: the 4th Avenue Mammatus.

The linear cloud will function as an acoustical barrier to the former strip of speed while at the same time activating the urban fabric into a vibrant public space that connects otherwise isolated neighborhoods. Key locations along the six-mile strip - that will be dotted with trees - have access points for both cyclists and pedestrians that once on the strip can opt for fast movable or slow walkways and the cycle paths. Along these traffic lines one finds quiet areas where one can sit on the benches surrounded by tree tops.
During the day the cloud of pouch-like modules, which range from opaque to transparent glass, subtly filters the sunlight over the road. At night the previously exhausting red and white lights of the cars and traffic lights are refracted to the upper level that glows in a continuous changing rhythm that varies from white, to pink, to red depending on the car traffic on the ground level.