Jeffrey Lee, Rui Liu, and Tina Qiu are authors of Vertical Central Park. As they state, Manhattan is filled with skyscrapers and the only significant green area on the island is Central Park, situated in the heart of the city. Almost two million people live on the island with an area of 23 square miles–that is about 70,000 people per square mile. It’s no wonder then that new commercial and residential construction has looked skyward instead of building horizontally.
The example of Central Park is crucial for Manhattan planning, as an attempt to conserve outdoor greenery. The authors of Vertical Central Park elevated the existing one, altogether with its grid, road penetrations, programs and features, and rotated it 90 degrees so it became the section for the future intervention of the skyscraper. At the point where skyscrapers require an atrium void, they inserted a green one. Mimicking the insertion of Central Park within its rectangular city grid, the central atrium of the skyscraper becomes the park area, whilst its adjacent access routes become the slab set for the high-rise.
The programs featured in the park are translated into new elements within the hotel typology, creating a new vertical feature. The incorporation of the park’s existing program literally into the program of the hotel not only attempts to create a new hotel typology so that the large voids can become airy green spaces but more importantly aims to reinsert the element of ‘backyards’ and gardens within the contemporary trend of vertical living.
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