URBAN DESIGN STUDIO I: SUMMER -1996

Manhattan West Side: The fight to stay afloat

There was once a time when this segment of Manhattan was best known as the home of the great transatlantic ocean liners, symbols of long distance travel. The assemblage of liners joined with the skyscrapers to create a vision of the 20th-century Metropolis. Today the site has become dominated by a single function , and the victory of the car is evident.
The Site Construction enabled us to detect dead zones between the city and the river front -highway , elevated railroad , storage yard , parking fields , monofunctional buildings and unused piers - but it also allowed us to see the potential of these zones for development as public spaces.

Strategy:
To create urban enclaves that will provide public spaces connected to existing infrastructure at the regional , metropolitan and local scales.
To develop multiple and diverse activities, adding buildings and open spaces , considering scales and time.
To re-use the symbolic idea of moving and traveling to attract the public to mobile floating structures.

Probes:

Probe 1:-W Houston street / Pier 40
The urban surface is activated by breaking the sidewalk boundary from the inland 7th Avenue subway stop to the proposed New Plaza at Washington Street , creating a sequence of public spaces that will terminate at Pier 40.
This building will became a semi-open public space for flexible uses , a floating Plaza in the site that will be appropriated by the community . It will have entertaiment , sports and cultural events , big and small scale events ( International fairs , market , festivals , performing arts , restaurants , bars , etc )
New piers will be built to create a structure that can connect to existing ones, facilitating the movement of people across the site.

Probe 2:-Jacob Javits Convention Center:
The addition of a ferry terminal at Pier 76 and the extention of the elevated train railway will connect the Javits Convention Center with Greenwich Village.
By providing a new function for these buildings this area will have an opportunity to develop easily.
The convention center building will be also uses as a theater and cinema .