The iQuilt Plan

The iQuilt Plan was an exciting urban design strategy for walkability and creative placemaking. It capitalized on two of Hartford’s greatest strengths: its extraordinary concentration of arts, cultural and landscape assets and its exceptionally compact downtown. The cultural assets are physically close, but the pedestrian links between them are often weak. The iQuilt Plan strengthens those links. It offers an array of physical and programmatic improvements to the pedestrian network of public space – parks, plazas, streets, and sidewalks. 

The projects are a strategic mix of small and large, immediate and long-term, public and private. They can be implemented in stages. Each initiative is a patch that contributes to downtown’s overall pattern or quilt. The “i” in iQuilt stands for innovation, and each project incorporates innovative approaches to walkability and placemaking.

The goal is for downtown Hartford to become the central gathering place for the neighborhoods of the city and the towns of the region: a place of streets and sidewalks alive with people; a magnet for residents, visitors, creative workers and cultural innovators; a driver of economic activity and growth; and a model of livable, sustainable urban design.