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As we explore elements of design from around the world this week, our next stop brings us to the High Line project in NYC. Diller Scofidio + Renfro, a NYC firm that specializes in interdisciplinary design, has taken this unique project under their wing. The High Line story captures creative insight to preservation, architecture and design by using forward-thinking models and concepts. Through public outreach and education, here is a live example where ‘out-of-the-box’ ideas contributed to creating an extraordinary urban design that links the past and future.

For a brief background, the High Line is 1.5 mile-long historic elevated rail structure, built in 1929 as part of the West Side Improvement Project. This line portrays the story from an era when ships, trains, factories, and warehouses made the West Side of Manhattan America’s premier working waterfront. Since the the decline in rail traffic and rise in interstate trucking in the 1950’s, areas of this line have been threatened and demolished throughout the years, however there have been many efforts to preserve and raise awareness for the still standing 22 block stretch the High Line. In 2003, non profit organization Friends of the High Line (FHL) launched an international competition, “Design the High Line,” to attract an international mix of visionary ideas with the goal of attracting proposal’s for the High Line’s reuse (these ideas did not have to be practical or realistic). Concepts gathered through this competition primed the pump for historic preservation and reuse, and a few months later areas of the High Line were designated Historic

By March of 2004 the design process for restoring the High Line was becoming a reality with the High Line Design Team Selection. The Steering Committee (representatives from the City of New York and FHL) for this selection process chose four teams to begin design work for this project. These teams were asked to create and present a “design approach” that would be exhibited for public review. These designs were not intended be the final designs, but rather illustrations of the direction each team would take if selected (Four Design Approaches). Through this public exhibition, Diller Scofidio + Renfro were chosen to take on this project. After years of ideas, history and planning for the future; field operations for this unusual industrial infrastructure are expected to be completed in 2008-9. To learn more about this project and it’s unique Agri-tecture design, click on this link: High Line Design.

Tags: , Agri-tecture, Design the High Line, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Friends of the High Line, High Line, NYC