Since the closing of a city-owned landfill in 1963, the site’s transformation into Ferry Point Waterfront Park has been a long, complex process. The new Ferry Point Waterfront Park will be a long linear eastern ecological extension of the previously built and conventionally programmed western Ferry Point Park. Part of a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course, this new park extends east from the anchorage of the Whitestone Bridge approximately 0.7 miles along the East River. It is intended to become what the actively programmed western park is not, an environmentally focused place of passive recreation and contemplation.
The armature of this long linear waterfront park is a system of earthworks and grade changes that create an upper park and a lower park within a relatively long and narrow span. To further articulate the park, a circulation system of diagonal cross-grain connectors defines a discrete series of coherent landscape spaces while elongating and accentuating the distance from the upland margin of the site to the waterfront. This path system redirects and choreographs user movements, crenellating the “perceived” water’s edge and revealing site. The interstices of the path system are a series of swatches that vary in texture, tone and ecology. The path system operates along the interface of two landscape typologies affording visitors a varied experience while strolling along the designated path system. These eco-swatches are large enough to be viable ecologies and to accommodate unforeseen future programmatic changes. The cultural ecology will complement the ecological underpinning of the park. The plan includes an urban beach, small boat center and a waterfront restaurant, all of which will help transform Ferry Point Waterfront Park from blight to bright.
Shanghai International Dance Center
Inspired by the idea of movement, this collaboration with Studios Architecture achieves an artful harmony of building with landscape, program with site. The image of a dancer in grand jete kindled the designers’ imaginations and served as the project’s organizing idea. Asia’s first professional dance complex is tucked between a freeway, a subway station...
Aitken Place Park
Aitken Place Park will be at the heart of Toronto’s East Bayfront Community – currently being transformed from an underutilized industrial brownfield into a vibrant waterfront neighborhood. Flanked by the residential development to the west and the commercial buildings to the north, the park’s water’s edge location presents a unique opportunity to create...
Guthrie Green Park
Guthrie Green transforms a 2.6-acre truck yard into a lively urban park in the heart of downtown Tulsa’s emerging arts district. Opened in September 2012, Guthrie Green has become the area’s leading destination, drawing 3,000 plus people weekly to activities that have enriched the urban experience and spurred district-wide revitalization. The high-performance ...
Faria Lima
A new office tower, theater and café pavilion known as Alameda is being built in the high end district of downtown Sao Paulo; the centerpiece of the site design is the Alameda civic plaza. Lifted gently above the street level, four generous steps invite visitors to enter and explore the plaza while branded light pylons at all major entrances serve as place mar...