Dezeen Magazine

Park Avenue Centerline Competition

Waterfalls, forests and kayaks among proposals for Park Avenue centreline

Architects and designers have imagined ways to transform the central reservation along New York's Park Avenue for an ideas competition, including an underground rock-climbing wall, a huge cascading waterfall and a route for kayaking commuters.

Park Avenue Centerline Competition
Responses to the Beyond the Centerline ideas contest, which called for imaginative proposals for the Park Avenue centreline, include a massive mountainous building

An aquarium, elevated walkways and a putting green are also among the schemes for Park Avenue's central reservation that architects, designers, urban planners, artists and students have submitted to the Beyond the Centerline ideas contest.

Organised by New York real-estate company Fisher Brothers, the competition tasked entrants to come up with innovative ways to transform the congested boulevard into a hive of activity.

Park Avenue Centerline Competition
Entries have been whittled down to a shortlist of 17, which features Local Architects' proposal for kayaking and an ice-skating rink

From the 150 entrants, 17 were shortlisted for providing the most ambitious proposals – including three glass cubes to exhibit art work, an elevated basketball court and a yoga studio topped with an undulating grass roof.

Local Architects envisions a scheme that would create a narrow water passage accessed by curved steps, for New York residents to use for commuting by kayak, and an ice rink for skating or playing hockey.

Park Avenue Centerline Competition
Landscape designer studio Harrison Green is also in the running with its vision to turn Park Avenue into a forest

A waterfall flows down the massive mountain-shaped structure that New York-based ATYPE Architecture proposes to slot along the avenue's central reservation, joining a number of schemes submitted by landscape designers that would bring more of the natural environment into the metropolis.

Brooklyn-based Harrison Green has rendered a forest offering a habitat for wildlife, while Terrain Work imagines building a plant-filled carnival using an image that mimics the cover of the New Yorker magazine.

Park Avenue Centerline Competition
Terrain Work has imagined a carnival featuring pools, ferris wheels, colourful flowers and plants

Two schemes also propose building underground: Gaffney-Nguyen sees the street as a portal to a subterranean level, featuring shops and cafes; Studio Ames suggests burrowing further to create multiple levels for food markets, theatres, sports studio and a bouldering wall.

A 30-foot-tall (nine-metre) field of stalks and a green wall also feature on the shortlist. While only ideas, Fisher Brothers hopes they could incite others to think about new ways to use the street.

Park Avenue Centerline Competition
A thoroughfare would be created below Park Avenue in this ambitious design by Gaffney-Nguyen

"While Park Avenue, with its median plantings and periodic art installations, remains one of the world's most iconic commercial boulevards, I have long believed that we can and must be far more imaginative in how we encounter and utilise such a precious urban commodity," said Fisher Brothers partner Winston Fisher.

"Our hope is that this contest and these proposals will spark a real conversation about what can be done to activate Park Avenue's centreline for a new generation of New Yorkers."

Park Avenue Centerline Competition
Taking the subterranean proposal even further, Studio Ames imagines carving multiple levels for different activities

All 17 projects will be exhibited in the public arcade of Park Avenue Plaza from 5 March to 9 March 2018. A jury will pick two winners to receive the $25,000 (£18,165) prize. A second $5,000 (£3,600) prize will be awarded to the winner of the popular public vote.

Top image is by AMLGM.

More images

Mimosa Pudica by Marin Architects
Mimosa Pudica by Marin Architects
Stalks by Wilkinson Architects
Art Installation by Maison
Art Installation by Maison
Basketball by Maison
Basketball by Maison
Elevated Walkway by Jonathan Elmore
Elevated Walkway by Jonathan Elmore
Mini Golf by Michelle Schrank
Mini Golf by Michelle Schrank
Parks by Harrison Green
Parks by Harrison Green
Aquarium by Eric Spencer
Aquarium by Eric Spencer
Living Walls by Matthew Scarlett
Living Walls by Matthew Scarlett
Elevated Walkways, Carnival Ride by Daniel Elmore
Elevated Walkways, Carnival Ride by Daniel Elmore
Parks by JBA Collective
Parks by JBA Collective