The New York High Line : By James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro

New York, New York, United States
James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Post By:Kitticoon Poopong

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro change our perspective on parks with the High Line. 
Like our own personalities, urban identities evolve over time but risk snapping if pushed too far. The High Line—an elevated rail that snakes through Manhattan’s Meatpacking District and Chelsea, sidling up to some old buildings and slicing through others—has stamped its ever-changing character on its environs for 75 years. Opened in 1934 as a freight line bringing sides of beef and cases of milk to warehouses on the city’s west side, it morphed from a symbol of progress to a white elephant to a noirish backdrop for late-night assignations with hookers and drug dealers.

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

Over the years, the hulking metal viaduct had attracted people who loved it—such as Robert Hammond and Joshua David, who founded Friends of the High Line to spearhead efforts to save it—and others who hated it as an eyesore, a magnet for illicit activities, and an impediment to new development. So when James Corner Field Operations (JCFO) and Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) won the job to transform the abandoned High Line into an elevated urban park in 2004, the two firms needed to craft yet another identity for the 1.5-mile-long behemoth without stretching it too far from its past.

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan--Where the park slices through a building, blue lights were installed for a cinematic effect.

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

Photo © Courtesy of Jeff Goldberg/Esto

The designers approached this challenge by resisting the temptation to do too much. “We kept protecting the High Line from architecture,” says Ricardo Scofidio, the principal in charge for DS+R. “The idea was to retain the singularity of the place, to capture its postindustrial charm,” explains James Corner, principal of JCFO. In the past, various parties had proposed building housing on the High Line, using it as a passenger rail linking the Jacob Javits Convention Center to Chelsea and Greenwich Village, even turning it into one very long swimming pool. But, after holding an open ideas competition, the clients—the nonprofit organization Friends of the High Line and the City of New York (represented by its Department of Parks and Recreation and its Economic Development Corporation)—determined it should be an elevated park. At a few points, private developers would be allowed to erect buildings (such as the Standard Hotel) that touch the rail line, but such intrusions would be kept to a minimum to prevent clutter. After years of clamoring for its destruction, the city’s developers suddenly realized the High Line was an asset increasing their property values, not real estate poison. 

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

A pivotal moment in the long battle to save the High Line occurred in 2001, when Joel Sternfeld published photographs he took of the derelict structure throughout 2000. The haunting beauty of wild grasses growing on a rail line in the middle of the city captured the public’s imagination and helped galvanize support. It also fixed in people’s minds the image of a green ribbon running 30 feet above street level. JCFO and DS+R’s design retains that spirit, featuring some of the grasses and wild species seen in those images, along with plantings selected by Piet Oudolf that will bloom at different times of the year.

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan--A sunning area features chaise longues set on old train tracks.

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

“We didn’t want a sharp delineation between the plantings and the hardscape,” states Corner. “So we treated the park as a continuous carpet where the hard and soft blend together,” he adds. That carpet unfolds as a system of concrete planks interwoven with strips of greenery. In certain places, planks seem to have been yanked up to form ipé-wood benches with metal grilles underneath for drainage. The designers refer to this feathering of hard and soft elements as “agri-tecture.” 

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

The first phase of the park, stretching from Gansevoort Street (where the Whitney Museum of American Art plans to build a downtown branch designed by Renzo Piano) to 20th Street, opened in June. Phase Two, which runs from 20th to 30th Street and is under construction, will open in late 2010. A potential third phase would encompass the spur looping west around the 30th Street rail yards and up to the Javits Center, but is threatened by private development.
With steel trestles 5 feet deep and muscular steel columns, the High Line offered plenty of structure to support an elevated park. But workers needed to repair rusted beams and parts of the viaduct’s concrete “bathtub.” They also needed to remove the old rail surface and clean up materials contaminated with lead paint and oil.

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan--The designers feathered grasses and plantings into the park’s hardscape.

As part of their design of the new park, JCFO and DS+R returned some of the old tracks to the new surface. They also created a series of outdoor spaces, some that act as memorable moments and others that emphasize the park’s spatial continuity. Highlights include a sunning area at 16th Street with wooden chaise longues (some of which roll on wheels set on old tracks), an overlook at 17th Street where the architects cut a large window into the steel structure as it crosses 10th Avenue, and a grasslands south of 19th Street where the old rails and plantings provide an inkling of the rail line’s once-derelict charms. As you walk the project, you brush past giant billboards, third-story apartments, fire escapes, and the roofs of low buildings. “Most parks provide an escape from the city,” says Scofidio, “but this one puts you in the middle of it.” Although surrounded by the familiar, you find everything looks a little different from 30 feet up. At the 17th Street overlook, for example, you stare out the “window,” then realize you’ve spent five minutes looking at traffic! The power of the High Line lies in its ability to change our perspective without taking us very far away.

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan--The 17th Street overlook offers people on the street a glimpse of what’s happening on the High Line and mediates the view of park visitors so watching cars becomes entertainment.

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan--The designers feathered grasses and plantings into the park’s hardscape.

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan--To retain the High Line’s identity, the designers kept its old balustrade but added a new railing.

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan--The 17th Street overlook incorporates amphitheater seating and a zigzagging ramp.

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan--Concrete planks, mostly 12 feet long, serve as paving and “bend” to form benches.

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan--Cor-Ten steel panels, stainless-steel railings, and glass balustrades help define a material palette that recalls an industrial past.

Photo © Courtesy of Iwan Baan

site plan--drawing Courtesy of James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro

detail section--drawing Courtesy of James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro

The people
Architect: James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Location: New York, New York, United States
Photographs: Iwan Baan,Jeff Goldberg/Esto,

Design Team (2004-2009)
The High Line design team is a collaboration between landscape architecture and urban design firm James Corner Field Operations, and architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

James Corner Field Operations (Project Lead)
Principal-in-Charge: James Corner
Lead Project Designers: Lisa Tziona Switkin, Nahyun Hwang
Project Team: Sierra Bainbridge, Tom Jost, Danilo Martic, Tatiana von Preussen, Maura Rockcastle, Tom Ryan, Lara Shihab-Eldin, Heeyeun Yoon, Hong Zhou
Technical Specifications: Paul DiBona Specifications LLC
View Web site

Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Partners: Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio, Charles Renfro
Project Designer: Matthew Johnson
Project Team: Robert Condon, Tobias Hegemann, Gaspar Libedinsky, Jeremy Linzee, Miles Nelligan, Dan Sakai
View Web site

Buro Happold: Structural / MEP Engineering
Principal: Craig Schwitter; Team: Herbert Browne, Dennis Burton, Andrew Coats, Anthony Curiale, Mark Dawson, Beth Macri, Sean O’Neill, Stan Wojnowski, Zac Braun, David Bentley, Elizabeth Devendorf, Alan Jackson, Christian Forero, Joseph Vassilatos
View Web site

Robert Silman Associates: Structural Engineering/Historic Preservation
Joseph Tortorella, Andre Georges
View Web site

Piet Oudolf: Planting Designer
View Web site

L’Observatoire International: Lighting
Hervé Descottes, Annette Goderbauer, Jeff Beck
View Web site

Pentagram Design, Inc.: Signage
Paula Scher, Drew Freeman, Rion Byrd, Jennifer Rittner
View Web site

Northern Designs: Irrigation
Michael Astram

GRB Services, Inc.: Environmental Engineering/Site Remediation
Richard Barbour, Steven Panter, Rose Russo
View Web site

Philip Habib & Associates: Civil & Traffic Engineering/Zoning & Landuse
Philip Habib, Sandy Pae, Colleen Sheridan
View Web site

Pine & Swallow Associates, Inc.: Soil Science
John Swallow, Robert Pine, Mike Agonis
View Web site

ETM Associates: Public Space Management
Tim Marshall
View Web site 

CMS Collaborative: Water Feature Engineering
Edison Becker Bonjardim, Roy Kaplan, Tanya Larson
View Web site

VJ Associates: Cost Estimating
Vijay Desai, Sushma Tammareddi, Chongba Sherpa
View Web site

Code Consultants Professional Engineers: Code Consultants
John McCormick, Laurence J. Dallaire, Kevin Morin

Control Point Associates, Inc.: Site Surveyor
Paul Jurkowski
View Web site

Municipal Expediting Inc. Expediting
Elizabeth Kapp

Construction Team
LiRo/Daniel Frankfurt: Resident Engineer
SiteWorks Landscape: Construction Management KiSKA Construction: General Contractor
Bovis Lend Lease: Construction Management
Helen Neuhaus & Associates: Community Liaison

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