London-based Heatherwick Studio’s latest and much-anticipated project is finally open for public use. Titled “ Little Island ”, the public park is situated right off of the Hudson River, near the Meatpacking district in New York.
Formerly called pier 55 (due to its location near what remains of pier 54) the sprawling 11,000 sq.m park sits atop a whopping one hundred and thirty-two concrete columns erected upon the rocky river bed and is connected to the mainland by two bridges.
It was built in collaboration with ARUP, a global engineering firm, and Signe Nielsen of MNLA, a New York-based landscape architectural firm. The project was primarily funded by the Diller- von Furstenberg family foundation; they are also responsible for funding its maintenance for the next 20 years.
Heatherwick was initially approached with the proposition to design a pavilion for a new pier as part of the Hudson River Park project, but the design team wanted it to be more than that, and the concept of a whimsical, green getaway for the city’s population began to take shape in their minds.
Heatherwick states that the purpose of the park was to elicit “the feeling of leaving Manhattan behind” in the visitors to provide a peaceful haven away from the bustling city life. “[It’s] somewhere that would give a sort of emotional permission to look back at New York from somewhere other than New York.”
With looping pathways spanning more than 540 meters, the park also boasts of a 687-seat amphitheatre, a central plaza with seating, food and beverages, an intimate stage, and a lawn space referred to as “the glade”.
While the park draws influence from Japanese strolling gardens, Heatherwick said that the concept of building it to be a “social condenser” was inspired by his visits to hill towns in Italy, where promenading and people-watching are common social activities among the populace, adding that “people love to see and be seen.”
According to the British designer, the main idea for the structure, however, was informed by the old piles of the former pier 54 that can still be seen poking up above the surface of the Hudson River. “We were inspired by these piles and the civil engineering required to build structures that can withstand extreme river conditions.”
Underneath the surface, these wooden piles have come to be an important habitat for aquatic flora and fauna, which is a protected breeding ground for the fish in that area.
Normally, a pier is a long flat surface on top of a set of piles set deep in the river bed, often serving as a promenade, a landing space or harbour for vessels. With the concept and purpose of this pier already concrete in Heatherwick’s mind, every part of the structure emanates a sense of natural harmony—as the MNLA landscapes website states, it was “conceived as a leaf floating in the water”.
The piles are not separate from the deck, but the top of each one organically ‘unfurls’ into a petal or leaf-like planter, all 132 of which then join together to form the park’s surface. This shape was inspired by the patterns which formed around the old piles when the river water freezes in the winters.
The designers wished to diverge from the stereotypical flat pier and play with the topology of the park and create a beautifully contoured surface to further add contrast between the generally flat city of Manhattan, reinforcing the idea of escape from it. 39 different formwork shapes were used to create the 132 unique pots, each of which is about 20 feet in diameter.
The pots geometry follows a repeating Cairo pentagon tiling pattern to generate seemingly irregular shapes and a layout where the columns do not lie in straight lines, but still enable repetitive use of formwork, allowing for an elegant imitation of organic design.
The Park creates a diverse landscape interspersed with numerous pathways, viewing platforms and destinations. Making it a fostering hub of numerous activities while also effectively providing an apt and succinct secretion of the project.
After observing a marked reduction in sponsorship of public domain projects such as parks and recreational centres, this new privately owned public property comes with its challenges, and has gone through much in the 8 years between its conception and realisation—including flooding during Hurricane Sandy.
In all, Manhattan has gained a gorgeous little getaway from the hustle and bustle of the city in Little Island with about 400 species of trees (some of which will grow to be up to 60 feet in height), shrubs and herbaceous plants.
The fauna is also selected and placed deliberately to provide varied environments with every season, and form niche groups of diverse mini-ecosystems, which also takes advantage of the differences in environmental conditions that come with varied height, such as light exposure, wind exposure, etc. Not to mention, the amphitheatre apparently offers a perfect view of the sunset.
