The High Line project transformed a 1.45 mile abandoned elevated rail line into an urban park in New York City. MASS Design Group provided project management, landscape design, and construction administration services for the $150 million project, which created 6 acres of new public space. The design aims to preserve the wild character of the reclaimed industrial structure while accommodating its use as a popular public space. A gradient system of hard and soft surfaces allows areas to transition from high traffic areas to vegetated landscapes, providing different experiences along the linear park.

1. www.massdesigngroup.org
(Field Operations)
THE HIGH LINE
Partners: The City of New York,
Friends of the High Line
Location: New York City, New York
Duration: JAN 2010 - Present
Project Value: $150M USD
Size: 1.45 miles, 6 acres
Services Provided: Project Management,
Landscape Design, Construction
Administration
(MASS Design Director Sierra Bainbridge was a project manager for construction
administration and designer on the High Line while at Field Operations)
Inspired by the melancholic, “found” beauty of the High Line, where nature has
reclaimed a once-vital piece of urban infrastructure, we aim to re-fit this industrial
conveyance into a post-industrial instrument of leisure. 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 artifact. While it is essential to preserve the High
Line’s unexpected beauty, it is equally important not to underestimate the intended
use, popularity, and scale of this project as a new public space. This notion underpins
the overall strategy – a system of material organization that allows for varying 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.
(from Field Operations)