/// Manhattan Triptych - SS 2005
/// Designing the edge
/// Visiting prof. Hani Rashid (ETH)

Background

Cities today with their continuing growth compete for financial and cultural relevancy while facing difficulties and controversies that address questions of what constitutes pertinent approaches to urbanism in the 21st Century. Influences ranging from issues of local identity to the need for participation on the global stage are producing conflicted and profoundly diverse solutions. With that in mind, visions for large-scale sites can be developed. The task was to 'perform' visionary solutions as antidotes to rampant development, uninspired programming and the misaligned desires of politicians and entrepreneurs.

Assignment

The west side of Manhattan has been parceled, planned and re-planned countless times. Time and again ambitious projects have emerged, although mired in political issues. Meanwhile, there are profound possibilities for dealing with theses sites. Three specific areas of interest were investigated:
(1) Museums and culture;
(2) Sports and transportation infrastructure which sould inspire new urban approaches for such large-scale hight-intensity developments; and
(3) Commerce and infrastructure drawn from the already heated discussions surrounding the extension of the existing Convention Center in hopes of breathing life into this once vital and critical urban edge.

Site

The planning site reaches from 38th street to 50th street on the west side of Manhattan. For this area, visionary concepts for 'commerce and infrastructure' were to be developed.

This was done by several teams of two people each. The work presented here was done by Mathias Brücke and myself.

Analysis

In the beginning, New York's specific characteristics and myths were more closely analyzed. Interesting factors of Manhattan as materialized urban utopia are density and multiplication of space but also the concept of 'picturesqueness', i.e. an environment similar to sets on a stage. This also includes a high degree of artificiality. These aspects can clearly be seen in some examples such as the Central Park or Buckminster Fuller's design for a dome enclosing Midtown Manhattan.

Infrastructure

Infrastructure has been heavily influencing the site. The Lincoln Tunnel has 43.500.000 traffic, the Port Authority Bus Terminal 2.250.000 bus movements a year in all directions. Also, you will find the West Side Highway and a terminal for passenger ships.

Concept

The main idea is to put a 'transport hub' on the westside of Manhattan which will integrate the different systems of transportation on a single site and will dissolve today's complicated interweaving of traffic.
The large-scale structure of the hub is situated on the edge of the Hudson and assimilates the myths of Manhattan. As a result, there will be new possibilities for urban developement between the hub and midtown.
The length of the 'transport hub' is determined by the length of the landing strip for small airplanes which is on top of the building. The whole structure is shaped by the paths of traffic. A kind of 'artificial topography' is created. In the middle, there is a large porous central area which provides selective views over the Hudson and into Manhattan.
The means of transportation integrated in the hub are cars, taxis and busses - with direct connections to West Side Hwy., Lincoln Tunnel and midtown - subway - with connections to Times Sq and Grand Central - helicopters and airplanes bridging distances of up to 2400 km, passenger-ships, ferries and water-taxis.
Besides you can find programming which is related to the emerging structure of traffic. There are two hotels, shopping centers like Walmart or Ikea and leisure and sports facilities.

Construction of architectural models

Models were created using digital model-building techniques such as a laser cutter and a CNC mill.