For the conceivable future, Muessig’s vision remains “conceptual” and is not likely to be implemented. The site at Buffalo Bayou and downtown is already undergoing a major transformation to increase walking and cycling access. Nonetheless, veloCity shines light on how much space the Space City actually has to work with, as well as the potential of cyclists to redefine the city. It begs the question of whether culture will influence infrastructure in Houston’s future, or vice versa. “I see my project as a vehicle to encourage individual initiative,” Muessig says.
His project takes the navigational potential of the bicycle as its starting point, underscoring that even without their own freeway, cyclists can transgress the urban grid and chart new courses across the city’s diagonals and blank spaces. If enough continue to do so, perhaps Muessig’s vision will one day come to pass in some form.
![[Image: “One hundred men worked to raise the church, one-half inch at a time, for 35 days. Once the correct height was reached, a new concrete foundation was poured.” Image courtesy of the Galveston County Museum, Galveston, Texas, via Science Friday].
Following the catastrophic hurricane of 1900, the city of Galveston, Texas, was vertically raised up to 17 feet from its original ground level using “hand-cranked janks and mules,” NPR’s Science Friday explained last week. In order to “protect itself from future storms,” Dwayne Jones of the Galveston Historical Foundation told the radio program, the city set about constructing a defensive seawall. “And the city began to be raised behind it,” he adds, “so everything was lifted up… Houses, out-houses, sidewalks, fences—everything was raised.”
(via BLDGBLOG: On the Rise)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/995d53968bc1fd6804f0c7b3f2b3b397/tumblr_mmlk9iF9rl1qzdiowo1_500.jpg)
