Planning & Infrastucture
High Line Urban Park - James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Introducing a recreational fringe, New York-based architectural firms James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro, offer the cityscape a new kind of connect with the simple tranformation of an old elevated rail bed into the High Line Urban Park- a meander in the midst of a majore urban city.
Sustainability in its basic understating evolves all about reducing, reusing and recycling. The equation of renovation is a practical reinstitution of this approach. It is not about not tearing down and building something new. The design for the High Line Urban Park is a metaphor in a way for this ideation.
The Highline Urban Park designed by New York-based architectural firms James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro is an attempt to reconcile the cultural demands of habitation with a reappraisal of the occupation of the land. The High Line was a nine-block stretch of the old elevated train track built in the 30s to service the Manhattan’s Meatpacking District and lift freight trains off the city streets. Abandoned in 1980, it lay dormant, turning into an urban wasteland. It was rediscovered as an industrial relic as an overgrown ruin in 2000— “an abandoned human structure essentially reclaimed by nature in a matter of 20 years”.
The City of New York was originally planning to tear down the High Line, but an articulate vision of an alternative urban future was laid out by a group titled “Friends of the High Line”. To set out a new alignment to the structure, a completion was organised, eventually won by of landscape architects James Corner Field Operations and architects Diller Scodifio + Renfro. Blurring the boundary between park-scape and urban extrusion, it exposes meanderers to the city, rather than providing a retreat from city life. The fundamental principle arrived early on, contemporary infusions, encapsulating a paradox in that what is retained of the past without any fear of change.
Central to the reinterpretation of the overgrown greenery, was a demand to structure the relic by a more direct understanding of the landscape in its form and experience. The plan linearly developed as a virtual extension of the existing landscape. It illustrated the though behind grooming select landscapes with defined boundaries, particularly around the old rail tracks. The starkness of the original railways tracks poke out through the porous layer of concrete that has been cut away in strips here and there emphasising on a rustic outlook. The masking of old and new by the dominant palette of shrubbery, lush grasses and vibrant flora surrounding the rusted track in a way seems deliberate yet natural. The public realm aspect is signified by presence of wood chaise benches as the park winds along. Spaces dissolve sequentially and casually into concluding vistas overlooking the New York City. The parkway dips in and out to niche out coveted walkways and gathering places. The project evolves as a commentary to activate a revamp approach by employing abstracts additions and subtractions rather than demolish the charm of the original. It shifts in feel throughout the day, absorbing the character od it routine vendors, or the visitors-families, art groups, people just catching a break. Broken and rusted rail tracks showing signs of neglect and lack of character are transformed into a teeming epicentre- a simple rehabilitation of this abandoned space into a lush, green, elevated paradise.
Amongst the sprawling concrete jungle of New York, this rethought is a welcome change. Potently exploited from the patina of the ruin, it activates the beginnings of an urban space revolution- a dimension unexplored in sustainability. The vantage point belies in relishing a place where one can reflect and relax enough to get a new perspective on the city life. Recreating the ethos of an urban spirit, the park introduces a cut through daily routines, as a part of city life, not removed from it.
Credits Text: Maanasi Hattangadi
Photographs: courtesy James Shaughnessy, 1953, Iwaan Baan, Joel Sternfeld © 2000
Drawings: courtesy James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Courtesy the City of New York
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