DETAILS
As part of an urban design collaborative with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill for this new 65 acre redevelopment, Thomas Balsley Associates led the design effort for the project’s centerpiece, a 26-acre waterfront park on the Hudson River. The effort involved urban design, environmental considerations and a highway relocation; and required a creative, yet pragmatic, approach that was responsive to intractable timetables, multi-agency comments, community participation, and client objectives.
The park plan provides a unique opportunity for the city’s westside residents to walk unobstructed through the park to the river. Park entry enclaves are enriched with sculptural elements, park portals and pavilions and offer accessible street level seating areas with dramatic views. Esplanades, boardwalks, marsh grasses, piers and intimate coves provide a variety of water edge experiences.
A sensitive balance of active and passive recreational opportunities such as game courts, ball fields, community gardens, interpretive stations, play areas, cafe terraces, public art, a turf amphitheater and open lawns reflect the diversity of New York City and its culture of recreation.
The design draws upon the tradition of Olmsted’s Riverside Park to the north and celebrates the site’s history by infusing both with a 21st-century park experience.
Hunter's Point Shipyard and Candlestick Point
Perched on the edge of San Francisco Bay, the Hunters Point Shipyard was an important naval manufacturing center for the WWI and WWII war efforts. Now abandoned, the shipyard, along with Candlestick Point, will be combined into a new mixed use residential, retail and light industry development — the largest in San Francisco since WWII. Thomas Balsley Ass...
Dubai Opera District
The new Opera District celebrates the adjacent spectacle of the world’s tallest building, while embracing the rhythm of everyday life. For three distinct mixed-use areas within the nearly 100,000-square-meter District anchored by the namesake opera house, SWA’s layered landscape architecture provides visual and experiential coherence using the concept of a mus...
Gateway Mall Master Plan
The Gateway Mall runs 18 blocks through the center of downtown St. Louis, terminating at the famous Eero Saarinen Arch, and provides a green spine in which the downtown’s workers, residents, and visitors can relax and celebrate urban living.
The mall never fully lived up to the potential envisioned by the civic leaders at the time of its inception. Thom...
Queens West Open Space Master Plan
Queens West is a new mixed-use community planned for the Long Island City shoreline, directly across from midtown Manhattan and the United Nations. Central to its urban plan is an extensive open space system that includes upland and waterfront parks as well as streetscape. Beginning with conceptual plans the Thomas Balsley Associates team, together with Weintr...