There’s certainly an ambient cooling effect with the shade that’s provided. James: One could boast that there’s going to be some carbon reduction with the amount of greenery that we’ve brought there. I think we can demonstrate that 80 to 90 percent of all the water that falls on the High Line stays on the High Line. It also has open joints so that when it rains the water falls through the joints and is collected, stored and then allowed to seep slowly into the planting beds. One of the greatest features of the High Line is the paving, which has been designed to crack open and allow plants to come through. There is also a dynamic aspect to how the landscape is managed. We’ll learn from those that don’t make it, take them out and replace them with those that have done well. They’ve been drawn from the prairie or from other difficult environments and most of them will hopefully succeed in survival. Most of the plants up on the High Line are stress tolerant. We have a soil depth that is very thin – maybe 15 inches typically – it’s very hot in the summer, it’s freezing cold in the winter, there are issues with providing plantsadequate water and nutrients – it’s a very difficult environment. James: This is an extremely hostile and very difficult environment to build a landscape. Jill: Can you tell me a little bit about the sustainable features of the High Line and how you tried to work toward designing features for environmental sustainability? There are amazing discoveries to be made and if people come up here and find delight in that, then I think we’ve succeeded. You can turn one way and find yourself looking north up at 10th Avenue, but if you turn the other way you’ll see the Statue of Liberty. What’s great about the High Line is that there are nooks, crannies and hideaways. But what I do hope is that we will have succeeded in getting people to experience the delight in the sense of finding things. Different people come up here and feel different things and have a different set of experiences. James: I don’t think you can ever determine what people will feel, how they will emote or what they will experience. Jill: Is there a particular experience you want people to have when they come up here or a hope that you have for how people experience this? You go through an amazing succession of episodes, and for me, it‘s this choreography and experience of this that is really the most exciting and original part of this project. So when you say, “What’s your favorite part?” it’s not that there’s a favorite part, but it’s that there’s a favorite experience – it is the experience in the duration of time that it takes to walk from Gansevoort to 20th Street. These are all great places, but at the end of the day, the most important thing to me is the fact that the High Line is this green ribbon. Then there is also this wonderful spot, the 10th Avenue Square, where seating has been installed to overlook 10th Avenue. But what we call the ‘Sundeck at 14th Street’ is another great social space with big, over-sized furniture. I like this area around Gansevoort because it’s really the moment where you leave the hard concrete and steel of the street level, come into the garden, and really see the sky and a complete panoramic view. James: Everyone asks this question, and it’s really hard to say. Jill: What’s your favorite part of the High Line? Read on for my exclusive interview with James Corner below… I recently sat down with landscape architect James Corner, the lead designer behind the High Line, to get his personal perspective on the what it was like to take an abandoned train track and turn it into one of NYC’s best loved spots of greenery. With the completion of the rest of the High Line currently in the works, we couldn’t think of a better time to catch up with one of the brilliant minds behind the design of this beautiful public space. By turning an abandoned, elevated freight train track into a public park, this project has redefined the New York experience, affording never-before seen views of the city’s surrounding natural landscape as well as an expansive and intimate look into one of the world’s most dynamic urban environments. NYC’s High Line is a project that exemplifies effective adaptive urban re-use in a city that is littered with structures and spaces that have since reached the end of their useful life.
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