Designing for People

To call Hudson Yards in Manhattan colossal would be an understatement. Not since Rockefeller Center has a mixed-use development of this magnitude been undertaken in New York City. With five super-tall towers and 11 million square feet on 28 acres, it’s the largest private development in the history of the United States.

Its first phase opened on March 15. A matching development closer to the Hudson River is now being designed. The first, master-planned by KPF, features two towers by that firm, another by SOM and still another by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Rockwell Group. They’re joined by a shopping center with interiors from Elkus Manfredi. The towers reach as high as 1,300 feet; at ground level they’ve been brought down to human scale by landscape architects Nelson Byrd Woltz.

The development derives its name from the working rail yard beneath it, originally built in 1908 to connect Grand Central Terminal to New Jersey via a tunnel beneath the Hudson River. Here, 21st-century engineers have placed about 300 concrete caissons, rising 16 feet above and sunken 40 feet down into bedrock, between the tracks. Atop the caissons, they built a seven-foot “sandwich” of concrete. In between two layers are all the wiring, pumps and pipes to power the project. “The heroes here are the engineers,” says landscape architect Thomas Woltz. “They’re building a new neighborhood in the city all at once, over a pit of trains in Hell’s Kitchen.”

THE LANDSCAPE

Woltz’s landscape design is a graceful series of concentric ellipses that links the buildings to “Vessel,” a climbable sculpture by Thomas Heatherwick that’s meant for viewing the neighborhood – and the city. Woltz’s design also includes a public plaza, four-and-athird acres in size, with plantings sunk anywhere from 18 inches to seven feet deep, and soil that’s cooled so plants can thrive.

That’s right: it’s cooled from temperatures that rise to 150 degrees, a byproduct from the trains running below. “There’s air conditioning that’s cooling the trains, but it’s spewing hot air outside,” says Michael Samuelian, a former planner at Related Companies, the developer. “We’re cooling the soil by running air through the concrete slab so the tree roots don’t get shocked by the temperature below.”

Rainwater drains into a 60,000-gallon collection tank that stores and reuses it to irrigate the site’s 225 new trees – including garden settings of Hudson Valley native species like oak, black gum and bald cypress – for a net-zero impact. There are also 28,000 shrubs and perennials planted. “It’s a gentle space in a tough part of the city,” Woltz says. “It’s a much-needed intersection of landscape metabolism.” He wanted to create a humane space the scale of people among tall towers of glass and steel. “The goal is to welcome them through the ellipse, and to create a ceiling plane with the trees, making it the living room of New York City,” he says.

Words J. Michael Welton