 Thomas Balsley Associates/WEISS/MANFREDI

Hunter's Point

Located on Manhattan’s West Side, Balsley Park, formerly known as Sheffield Plaza, has been transformed from a barren, lifeless plaza into the community’s most cherished common ground.

Following public outcry and many failed attempts to redesign the plaza, Thomas Balsley Associates was hired to build community consensus around a new park-like image and design program that reached a broad constituency with kiosk, café, lawn, garden, green market and toddler area. The program and security were strengthened with a simple transverse path, which taps into the neighborhood sidewalk energy and desire lines.
The park is infused with design elements that suggest an escape from the order of the city and its grid, including distinctive colorful ribbon walls and sculptural pipe screens that present a playful park edge alternative to the adjoining buildings. The corner kiosk café is strategically located to overlook both the park and sidewalk activities.

Balsley Park

<p>Surrounded by water on three sides, this post-industrial waterfront site is separated from Manhattan by the East River. Two hundred years ago the site was a series of wetlands. After years as an industrial hub and rail station, all signs of its ecologically rich history were eliminated. What remained was a contaminated brownfield with an irregular water`s edge, a steep bluff, and remnants of decaying piers juxtaposed against the spectacle of the Manhattan skyline.   One of New York City`s most ambitious and complex developments in decades, Hunter`s Point South Waterfront Park aspires to be a transformative project. The park is well-connected to the adjacent neighborhood, to the East River Ferry, Long Island Railroad, two subway stations, Queens midtown tunnel, Pulaski Bridge, and CitiBike docks. By focusing on designing a park, streetscape, and infrastructural system that is innovative, flexible, and aspirational, the design weaves together new relationships between architecture, landscape and engineering to create places of retreat and recreation and ffer new connections with nature at the water`s edge.   The design embraces these diverse historical identities and serves as a new model for waterfront resilience, with a &ldquo;soft&rdquo; approach to protecting the water`s edge from floodwaters. A continuous meandering causeway, elevated slightly above the river, offers a walk along the river`s edge and protects nearly an acre of newly-established wetlands with an expanded plant palette that enhances water quality and promotes wildlife and fish habitation. The design also leverages the site`s dramatic topography with a shaded grassy promontory, a new island reached by a pedestrian bridge, a kayak launch, exercise and picnic terraces, a collection of intimate &ldquo;break-out&rdquo; lounges off the pathways, and a dramatic cantilevered overlook that hovers 25 feet above the wetlands and offers panoramic views of the Manhattan skyline.   To address the park`s irregular perimeter, the design team strategically located program elements and resilient infrastructure &ndash; often combined &ndash; to maximize both use and performance. For example, a new multi-use green oval and an adjacent canopy structure define the most generously open part of the site and serve as key pieces of resilient landscape infrastructure. The oval was designed to be inundated during flooding events and detains water which drains back to the river. This green is framed by a continuous path and pleated steel shade canopy on the south side which follows the curve of the oval and offers shelter for a ferry stop and concession building. The roof integrates photovoltaic panels on its south-facing pleats to power the pavilion and park lighting. These pleats also collect stormwater that channels through biofiltration subsoils, improving water quality and reducing flood risks. Richly planted bio-swales, filled with a diverse mix of native plantings and engineered soils, extend deep into the neighborhood along adjacent, perpendicular streets.</p>

Hunters Point South Waterfront Park

 The architects talk about designing the waterfront Park, how they addressed the possible flooding post Sandy and some of the design features they incorporated into the park shelters. 

<p>ANew York City-based design firm best known for its fusion of landscape and urbanism in public parks and plazas.&nbsp;</p>

Thomas Balsley Associates

This podcast discusses Main Street Garden, which is one of the parks in downtown Dallas.

Thomas Balsley Associates

IMAGE ALBUMS

1
Gantry Plaza State Park ALBUM

2
Hunters Point South Waterfront Park ALBUM

SITES

Thomas Balsley Associates

IMAGE ALBUMS

1Gantry Plaza State Park ALBUM

2Hunters Point South Waterfront Park ALBUM

SITES

1
Gantry Plaza State Park ALBUM

2
Hunters Point South Waterfront Park ALBUM