New York, New York
2005

The Friends’ perseverance saved the High Line from the hungry clutches of developers. The victory presented the opportunity to create a new type of urban park not yet seen in the U.S. As one of four finalists chosen for the design competition, Team TerraGRAM devoted itself to a strategy of simply inviting locals and tourists up into the found wilderness of the overgrown elevated railway.

Proposing a process more than a product, the vision avoided packing the 1.3 mile long wildscape with the usual park program and posed alternatives to big capital investments and high maintenance costs. Instead, the resourceful and restrained design intent was to allow visitors to explore the nuances of a degraded landscape’s natural succession and experience that wildness in contrast to the other cultivated parks along the Hudson River.

Clients + Collaborators

Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, landscape architects; Mathews Nielson, landscape architects; ARO, architects; Beyer Blinder Belle, urban planners; Luc Sante, author; 2x4, graphics.