In history the waterfront - as a harbor - was the place where the dimension of distance came to one's mind...strange goods, people and news arrived, performed on this stage and attracted the citizens curiosity until they vanished into the city. The empty space of the water, the piers, the space in front of the buildings and the zone of the enclosed space near the water seems to be a volume, similar to a skin, where diffusion takes place, and which is the host for temporary occurences. In this place, like on stage, not only subjects bcome reality, but ideas, hopes, desires, historical baggage etc. The different kinds of artificial subjects can be found in our site; they form an overlapping collage - moving along the site to build up a sequence of events - the themestrip.
The mixture of physical and psychological reality creates a strong atmosphere, which may become one special part of the citycollage, in another way spiritcruising means recreation and attraction. The strategic model analyzes the dynamic and potential of the site. Three points of special tension led to locating three probes of further interest.
According to the ideas of the theme strip and stage the three probes represent different scales of places, different programs and different characters, by moving along the waterfront this will occur as a sequence of special environments, the perception of the movement's speed will differ and create a special event out of passing by ...
The project at Perry Street deals primarily with local scale issues as the intensive connection of residential and recreation at the water, a sloping landscape creates a shore, cars slow down and improve the accessibility of the water, the pier becomes a cultural one (Teatro Del Mondo by Aldo Rossi), the diving part of the strategic model transforms into a sea garden, nature and intimate places.
The primarily regional scale project is located at 34th Street, as an intensive point of arrival, departure and moving through of people, goods and information, a Dinosaur building - beneath and above the surface - will concentrate these potentials and become a center of connection and changing of transportation, in addition to the existing functions (Greyhound, trains, UPS, FED EX, storage, metropolitan connection, highway access, convention center) the program suggests hotels, headquarters for each company, stores for moving sales, and rental goods...
The metropolitan related project is situated in between these sites, at 14th Street - the meat market - the mixture of the structure and size of buildings referring to the different grids meeting there, provides a multifunctional program. Reactivating the train track and its connection to the public transportation system, and the perfect accessibility by car (parking space) it may attract mixed groups, smaller or bigger companies, art and trading, private and business...the implantation of new buildings (modern technical infrastructure etc.) into the abandoned structure may create a transformed corporate identity - animals become alive and enlighten the night at the waterfront...the manhattan zoo.
As an urban strategy to improve keypoints in the city the probes create different images of the city and are read as a sequence of events by passing the westside of Manhattan...