High Line-inspired projects
Three High Line-inspired projects clockwise from top left: San Francisco's new Bay Bridge and the old structure that park advocates would like to save; The Embankment in Jersey City, envisioned as an open space oasis; and a proposal for a 3- mile greenhouse and hydrogen-generation facility to be situated on Chicago's former Bloomingdale Rail Line.
Inspired by the success of the High Line, proposals to reimagine abandoned rail lines have popped up all over the country.
- Faced with the replacement of a section of San Francisco’s Bay Bridge, Rael San Fratello Architects have proposed the creation of the Bay Line, a hanging neighborhood complete with housing, cultural and commercial buildings and bike and pedestrian paths. Inhabitat notes, however, that the bridge section is being replaced for structural reasons and would have to be stabilized before it could be re-purposed.
- In Chicago, a design collaboration between Gensler and 4240 Architecture envisions the old Bloomingdale Rail Line as a 3-mile greenhouse containing a 100-acre urban farm and, on its underside, a hydrogen-powered generator. The energy source, dubbed the “HYDROGENerator,” would be placed along an old aqueduct that runs under the railway, and would be used to power local schools.
- Just across the Hudson from the High Line, The Embankment Preservation Coalition has been advocating for the preservation of an elevated stonework structure that runs a half mile and spans 6 acres in downtown Jersey City. The Embankment is part of what was once a freight railroad line comprising seven tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad. It’s envisioned as part of the 2,600-mile East Coast Greenway: a traffic-free path spanning from Florida to Maine.
(via Inhabitat, BLDGBLOG and High Line Blog)
