! Alert

Stay safe in the heat: Drink plenty of water, spend time in the shade, and visit the first aid station at Soissons Landing if you feel unwell. Click here for important warm weather visitor information.

Stay safe in the heat: Drink plenty of water, spend time in the shade, and visit the first aid station at Soissons Landing if you feel unwell. Click here for important warm weather visitor information.

On the Boards: Deep­en­ing the expe­ri­ence of vast water and big sky

As build­ings have been demol­ished on the south­ern tip of Gov­er­nors Island, raw open space has been cre­at­ed in the foot­prints of the old struc­tures. We’ve been work­ing with the West 8 design team to imag­ine ways of giv­ing this space char­ac­ter and turn­ing a flat bar­ren area into a great des­ti­na­tion. This trans­for­ma­tion will hap­pen in a num­ber of ways. 

[cap­tion id=“attachment_999” align=“aligncenter” width=“468” caption=“Looking north in the after­noon, 02.19.09. With some of the non-his­toric build­ings down, we’re see­ing even more of the vast sky that sur­rounds the Island. West 8’s design will high­light this sense of open­ness and expo­sure in some areas, while play­ing with the expe­ri­ence of shade and suprise in oth­ers.”]img_2371sm[/​caption]

For exam­ple, the tip of the Island is one of the few places in New York City to see a broad hori­zon but today it is a sea of asphalt next to a des­o­late motor pool and old ware­hous­es. The views here out to the water are spec­tac­u­lar, but it’s not an enjoy­able place to spend time. 

We’ve asked the West 8 team for a park design that deep­ens a vis­i­tor’s expe­ri­ence of the vast water and big sky. In response, the design team has been study­ing the Island at all times of day — in the rain, the wind, the sun, and the snow. They’ve walked the water’s edge over and over and got­ten to know the spe­cif­ic moods and qual­i­ties of the site — like the aspects of shift­ing light, the sen­sa­tions of the waves and chang­ing tides, and the smells and sounds of var­i­ous spots along the water’s edge. Their research is inform­ing each design deci­sion big and small — every­thing from where to place the walk­ing paths in rela­tion­ship to the water, to what types of trees to plant and where for shade, to the design of seat­ing for boat-watch­ing and peo­ple watch­ing, to the com­fort of a guardrail for lean­ing against when at the water’s edge. This sum­mer, you’ll be able to walk to the tip of the Island and see for your­self — what exists there now and con­tem­plate what could be there in the future