Creativity Runs Wild at 5 Outer-Borough Installations and Destinations
Creativity runs wild at outer-borough destinations and installations.
1. Firms: SWA/Balsley, Weiss/Manfredi, and Arup
Project: Hunter’s Point South Park Phase II
Site: Long Island City
Standout: What was an abandoned industrial complex on the tip of Queens is now a 5 1/2-acre refuge of bike paths, wetlands, and lush lawns, a circular portion of the latter dotted with Nobuho Nagasawa’s glowing 6-foot-diameter disks representing the phases of the moon.
2. Firm: Austin + Mergold, Maria Park, Christopher Earls, and Scott Hughes
Project: Oculi
Site: Governors Island
Standout: Professors and a visiting lecturer from Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning channeled the U.S. agro-industrial age with a 20-foot-tall installation of an Ohio farm’s disused corn silos, secured by aluminum brackets fabricated at the university’s Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics.
3. Firm: James Corner Field Operations
Project: Domino Park
Site: Williamsburg
Standout: Among elements salvaged from the Domino Sugar refinery that once operated on the 6-acre site are iron syrup tanks and dozens of structural columns, the latter now supporting a two-block-long elevated catwalk, similar to the one that linked all the factory’s structures.
4. Firm: Dream the Combine
Project: Hide & Seek
Site: MoMA PS1, Long Island City
Standout: The winner of the museum’s annual Young Architects Program, in which firms are tasked with creating a temporary installation that provides shade, seating, and water, encompassed courtyard-spanning steel structures fitted with gimbaled mirrors, a communal hammock formed from polyester nets, and a truss-based misting system.
5. Firms: Summer Ops, North 45 Projects, Starling Architecture, and Mogollon Studio
Project: Island Oyster
Site: Governors Island
Standout: Crisp stripes paired with a tropical palette of reds and blues transformed an asphalt patch into a modernist, island-inspired seasonal restaurant, where nearly every seat at the 100-foot-long mahogany-and-marble bar affords New York Harbor views.
