High Line Design Unveiled

The High Line is an abandoned railroad line on the west side of Manhattan that will be turned into a public walkway and open space over the next several years.

A mile-and-a-half path of concrete planks will weave among plants and wildflowers like a curvilinear boardwalk meandering through a floating garden. Some entrances will emphasize a gradual ascent from the grit and congestion of the city's streets to an oasis of pastoral calm. The 22-block stretch is to include the unexpected: an adjustable chair that can become a table or a chaise lounge; a walkway flanked by a wetland with lily pads.

These details and others have been refined over the last several months by designers who plan to create an elevated public walkway out of the High Line, an abandoned railway that runs 30 feet above the city between 10th and 11th Avenues in Manhattan, from 34th Street to Gansevoort Street in the meatpacking district. The most recent digital drawings and renderings, including a 20-foot-long architectural model, are on display at the Museum of Modern Art.

"Landscape architecture and urban design are completely integrated," said the show's curator, Tina di Carlo, an assistant curator in the museum's architecture and design department.

Construction of the project, designed by the New York-based architectural firms Field Operations and Diller, Scofidio & Renfro, in cooperation with the city and the nonprofit group Friends of the High Line, is expected to begin by year's end.

The High Line extends from Gansevoort Street north to 34th Street. The project's first phase will develop the segment from Gansevoort to 14th Street and is expected to be completed by 2007. Photo by Erik Skindrud.

The design team has been focusing on the first phase of the High Line, the southernmost portion, from Gansevoort Street to 15th Street, deciding on elements like seating, security and access. "It's answered a lot of the practical questions we've always had: how do you make it safe, and how do you get up there? At the same time, how do you keep it interesting?" said Robert Hammond, a founder of Friends of the High Line.

Much of the designers' work has been devoted to seeking a balance between preserving what one called "the romance of the ruin" - wild grasses growing up through the metal skeleton of rails and rivets - and creating a fresh green corridor for pedestrians. (The High Line is currently off limits.) "There is an ecosystem in place," said Elizabeth Diller, one of the architects. "The moment you let people up there, that ecosystem will be destroyed. We have to find a way for humans and growth to coexist."

James Corner, the founder and director of Field Operations, the project's landscape architect, described the challenge as "how to maintain the magic of the High Line as a found landscape in the city, yet at the same time accommodate the numbers of people who want to stroll up there." The concrete planking system is to cover about half of the High Line, a soft layer of vegetation the remainder. But these proportions are flexible; planks can be added to reduce the amount of greenery and vice versa.

"We're trying to keep this as uncommercialized as possible," said Ricardo Scofidio, another of the architects, "to keep it simple and natural and not to overwhelm it."

In developing plans for the downtown portion of the High Line, the designers have been focusing on how the walkway will interact with the street, distinguishing among the different entrances in terms of speed - some will provide a slow ascent; others will be more direct. Every access point is to have a presence at ground level.

The design calls for a variety of seating options all along the High Line, including loose chairs and benches - "all sorts of combinations as to how the public could inhabit this space," said Ms. di Carlo, the assistant curator. "A couple or a couple with a baby or disabled people or someone walking their dog," she added, "all of that has been studied."

The design team also includes Piet Oudolf, a horticulturalist; Olafur Eliasson, an artist; and the firm Buro Happold, structural engineers.

--The New York Times