architect: Diller Scofidio + Renfro, James Corner Field Operations
location: New York, U.S.A.
year: 2009
The High Line, in collaboration with Field Operations, is a new 1.5-mile long public park built on an abandoned elevated railroad stretching from the Meatpacking District to the Hudson Rail Yards in Manhattan. Inspired by the melancholic, unruly beauty of this postindustrial ruin, where nature has reclaimed a once vital piece of urban infrastructure, the new park interprets its inheritance. It translates the biodiversity that took root after it fell into ruin in a string of site-specific urban microclimates along the stretch of railway that include sunny, shady, wet, dry, windy, and sheltered spaces. Through a strategy of agri-tecture – part agriculture, part architecture – the High Line surface is digitized into discrete units of paving and planting which are assembled along the 1.5 miles into a variety of gradients from 100% paving to 100% soft, richly vegetated biotopes. The paving system consists of individual pre-cast concrete planks with open joints to encourage emergent growth like wild grass through cracks in the sidewalk. The long paving units have tapered ends that comb into planting beds creating a textured, “pathless” landscape where the public can meander in unscripted ways. The park accommodates the wild, the cultivated, the intimate, and the social. Access points are durational experiences designed to prolong the transition from the frenetic pace of city streets to the slow otherworldly landscape above.
Diller Scofidio + Renfro is an interdisciplinary studio at the crossroads of architecture, the visual arts and the performing arts. Our work encompasses architectural design, master planning, temporary and permanent multi-media installations, experimental theatre and dance, furniture, digital media and print.
DS+R recently completed Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and is currently in construcion phases on a variety of projects on the campus, which includes an expansion of the Julliard School, a new pavilion restaurant for North Plaza and the transformation of Lincoln Center’s public spaces and surrounding streets.
