Hudson Park Boulevard Cafe
New York, NY, USA
2015

The Hudson Park and Boulevard project includes the design for a new four acre urban park as part of the revitalization efforts of the far west side of Midtown Manhattan. Providing much needed green space in the new mixed use neighborhood, the Hudson Park and Boulevard is an integral component to the new development that works to create a harmonic relationship between urban infrastructure and natural landscape. Two entry canopies for the 7line subway extension, a café pavilion, a playground, and a cluster of fountains are seamlessly integrated with the landscape and streetscape to create public spaces with instances of repose from the hectic pace of New York City.

The café, by contrast, seeks to standout as an orienting landmark in the landscape. Orange and stainless steel, materials common to fast food establishments, are reinvented to create a visual dialogue with a neighboring art piece. The building’s metallic orange body, wrapped by a rain-screen of horizontal stainless steel wires, produces a dynamic relationship with the site as the visitor moves around it. This visual dynamism is accentuated further by the inverted conic massing of the building, which leans away from the corner of the park towards its center, inviting pedestrians into the urban oasis that it helps create

Credits:

Design Team: Toshiko Mori, Joshua Uhl, Rick Lam, David Jaubert, Justin Brown
Structural: Schlaich Bergermann & Partners
MEP: Dagher Engineering
Landscape: Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates