Water Proving Ground

LTL Architects was one of five architecture firms selected by MoMA for the workshop and exhibition, Rising Currents. The show examined the future impacts on New York Harbor of rising sea-levels brought on by global warming through a series of speculative proposals for the water’s edge. LTL’ s design focused on the site of Liberty State Park in the harbor’s Northwestern quadrant, a former rail yard constructed as a series of landfills during the early part of the 20th century and all but destined to disappear with shifting sea levels. LTL Architects fue uno de los cinco estudios de arquitectura seleccionados por el MoMA para el workshop y la exposición Rising Currents . Dicha exposición examinaba los impactos futuros en el puerto de Nueva York debido al aumento del nivel del mar provocado por el calentamiento global a través de una serie de propuestas especulativas para los márgenes de la bahía. El proyecto de LTL se centró en Liberty State Park, en el cuadrante noroeste del puerto, un antiguo punto ferroviario construido como una serie de vertederos durante la primera parte del siglo XX y prácticamente destinado a desaparecer con los cambios en el nivel del mar. Integrating water as a performative component of the design, the project proposes a vibrant amphibious landscape continually activated by rising tides. By redistributing the site’s historic fill to create a series of four raised land-piers, the design multiplies the length of the existing coastline by a factor of ten. This complex edge generates a more resilient buffer to storm surge and coastal flooding and maximizes the intertidal zone as a testing ground for new uses and inhabitations based on the dynamic exchange between sea and land. Structured as a series of petri dishes, the plan incorporates a diversity of programs and multiple ecologies, combining productive landscape and urban park.