High Line Design Team List Narrows to Final Four

NEW YORK CITY-Four teams comprised of architects, landscape architects, engineers and planners have been chosen from a field narrowed down from 52 entrants to create a master plan for the High Line, a 1.5-mile-long elevated rail structure on the West Side. Constructed in the 1930s to remove freight trains from the streets, it has not been used since 1980. Since that time an effort has been made to turn the site into an elevated park.

“Transforming the High Line into a unique and accessible elevated park will be one of the most important things we will do for future generations in New York City,” says Amanda M. Burden, chair of the New York City Planning Commission, which along with advocacy group the Friends of the High Line, selected the finalists. “The team we choose must be of a caliber that matches that important task.”

Team leaders and principals include from Team 1: Field Operations, landscape architects; Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, architects; Olafur Eliasson, artist; Piet Oudolf, horticulture; Halie Light & L’Observatoire International, lighting; and from Team 2: Zaha Hadid Architects, architects; Balmori Associates, landscape architects; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP (Marilyn Jordan Taylor), architects; studio MDA (Markus Dochantschi), architects. Team 3 members are from: Steven Holl Architects, architects; Hargreaves Associates, landscape design; HNTB, technical design, while Team 4 members are: TerraGRAM: Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, landscape architects; DIRT Studio (Julie Bargmann), industrial site design; Beyer Blinder Belle (Neil Kittredge), urban design.