Working alongside landscape architects James Corner Field Operations, SHoP Architects has planned a mixed-use complex that includes the renovation of the nineteenth century factory, five new buildings, plus a series of public parks, gardens and sports fields.

The plans replace earlier proposals by Rafael Viñoly for the historic site, which started production as a sugar factory in 1856 but has been out of use since 2004. Viñoly's proposals proved unpopular with local residents, so developer Two Trees commissioned an alternative that would offer taller buildings but more public spaces.

"If you're standing next to a 400-foot tall building or a 600-foot tall building, you have no idea," SHoP principal Vishaan Chakrabarti told New York magazine Curbed. "But if a 600-foot building means that you get a park where your kid can graduate, that means something to you."

The tallest building in the scheme is a 180-metre tower, which will be positioned beside the Williamsburg Bridge to the south. Other structures will be shorter in height, relating to the scale of buildings to the north and east, and will include a tower with a rectangular void through its middle and a school at its base, plus a 600-unit apartment building. The old factory will be transformed into offices for technology companies and the creative industries.

The developer plans to push ahead with the project this year and is organising community meetings in the upcoming weeks.

SHoP Architects has worked on a number of high-profile projects recently. The team completed the Barclays sports arena in Brooklyn in September and is also developing a masterplan for a new "silicon" city in Kenya.

New York-based James Corner Field Operations is best known for its role on the High Line, an elevated park on an abandoned railway.

Here's some more explanation from SHoP Architects:

With Two Trees Management Company, SHoP and Field Operation's masterplan for the Domino Sugar site replaces a city-approved 2010 plan with a new proposal that adds 60% more publicly-accessible open space on a new, highly accessible street grid; provides for a new 24/7 mix of office, residential, neighborhood retail, community facilities while retaining original commitments for affordable housing; and a new form of open architecture that connects the existing neighborhood to the new quarter-mile waterfront.

Most strikingly, the plan envisions a new skyline for Brooklyn—one that relates to the height of the Williamsburg bridge to the south and scales down to meet the lower buildings across Kent Avenue to the east. Central to the scheme is the renovated Domino Sugar refinery building, which will become the nerve center of the project as a new office building across from a new public space, Domino Square.

The new surrounding buildings are porous, featuring large openings that allow light and air to penetrate through the site and into the neighborhood beyond. While exuberant on the skyline similar to new architecture being built around the world, the buildings responsibly meet the ground and the Williamsburg Street grid.

The post Domino Sugar by SHoP Architects
and James Corner Field Operations appeared first on Dezeen.

Landscape architects James Corner Field Operations, architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro and planting designer Piet Oudolf have completed Section 2 of the High Line, a 1.5 mile-long elevated park on an abandoned railway in New York.

The project spans 22 blocks through the west side of Manhattan and is split into three equal stages, with Section 2 bringing the completed length up to one mile.

Unlike Section one, which was completed in 2009, this second phase includes a stretch of lawn.

A new platform elevated 2.5 metres above the main High Line overlooks a canopy of trees and plants below.

Photographs are by Iwan Baan, apart from where otherwise stated.

See our earlier story on Section 1 of the High Line »

More projects by Diller Scofidio + Renfro on Dezeen »

More landscape architecture on Dezeen »

The following information is from Diller Scofidio + Renfro:

The High Line (Phase II)
Public Park: New York, NY 2011

The High Line, a collaboration between Field Operations, project lead, with Diller Scofidio+ Renfro and Piet Oudolf, is a new 1.5-mile long public park built on an abandoned elevated railroad stretching from the Meatpacking District to the Hudson Rail Yards in Manhattan.

Above photograph is by Barry Munger.

Inspired by the melancholic, unruly beauty of this postindustrial ruin, where nature has reclaimed a once vital piece of urban infrastructure, the new park interprets its inheritance.

It translates the biodiversity that took root after it fell into ruin in a string of site-specific urban microclimates along the stretch of railway that include sunny, shady, wet, dry, windy, and sheltered spaces.

Through a strategy of agri-tecture—part agriculture, part architecture—the High Line surface is digitized into discrete units of paving and planting which are assembled along the 1.5 miles into a variety of gradients from 100% paving to 100% soft, richly vegetated biotopes.

The paving system consists of individual pre-cast concrete planks with open joints to encourage emergent growth like wild grass through cracks in the sidewalk. The long paving units have tapered ends that comb into planting beds creating a textured, “pathless” landscape where the public can meander in unscripted ways.

The park accommodates the wild, the cultivated, the intimate, and the social. Access points are durational experiences designed to prolong the transition from the frenetic pace of city streets to the slow otherworldly landscape above.

The post The High Line Section 2 opens appeared first on Dezeen.

Section 1 of the High Line, a 1.5 mile long park on an abandoned elevated railway, opened earlier this week in New York. Update 26/03/11: section two of the High Line has opened. Update: this project is included in Dezeen Book of Ideas, which is on sale now for £12.

The winning proposal for a competition in 2004, the design is a redevelopment of an abandoned, elevated freight-railway that spans 22 blocks through the west side of Manhattan.

The High Line is designed by landscape designers James Corner Field Operations and architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Photographs are by Iwan Baan.

Here's text from James Corner Field Operations:

--

James Corner Field Operations led the winning design team for the 2004 international competition in collaboration with Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Piet Oudolf  and many other expert specialists for the High Line, an unusual 1.45 mile long, abandoned elevated railway that spans 22 city blocks in between and through buildings and along the west side of Manhattan.

As the lead designer of the High Line, James Corner Field Operations has led all aspects of the project including design (from concept through construction), project management and coordination and construction administration.

Inspired by the melancholic, found beauty of the High Line, where nature has reclaimed a once-vital piece of urban infrastructure, the design team aims to refit this industrial conveyance into a post-industrial instrument of leisure.

By changing the rules of engagement between plant life and pedestrians, our strategy of agri-tecture combines organic and building materials into a blend of changing proportions that accommodates the wild, the cultivated, the intimate, and the hyper-social.

In stark contrast to the speed of Hudson River Park, the singular linear experience of the new High Line landscape is marked by slowness, distraction and an other-worldliness that preserves the strange, wild character of the High Line, yet doesn't underestimate its intended use and popularity as a public space.

This notion underpins the overall strategy the invention of a new paving and planting system that allows for various ratios of hard to soft surface that transition from high use areas (100% hard) to richly vegetated biotopes (100% soft), with a variety of experiential gradients in between.

The post The High Line by James Corner Field Operations
and Diller Scofidio + Renfro appeared first on Dezeen.