A whole lot of valuable land in America’s densest urban centers is occupied by the disused and often toxic remnants of neglected infrastructure, industrial complexes and other blight that could be green space instead. Taking inspiration from New York City’s High Line, an elevated linear park along a former New York Central Railroad spur, many cities are transforming urban riverbanks, viaducts, underpasses, freeway structures and even the tops of tunnels into parks, bike paths, pedestrian routes and other public amenities.

11th Street Bridge Park, Washington DC by OMA and OLIN

An aging freeway structure over the Anacostia River in Washington D.C. is set to become the 11th Street Bridge Park, with officials announcing in October 2017 that a design by OMA + OLIN has been chosen. Each ‘lane’ of the bridge is pulled upward toward the middle, crossing each other to form an X shape; the space underneath these overhangs will host a performance area, cafe, plazas and other public functions.

Lowline, New York City, New York by James Ramsey and Daniel Barasch

Complementing New York City’s famous High Line park, a 1.45-mile greenway built on a former New York Central Railroad spur, the subterranean ‘Lowline’ has been given a green light. Set to be the world’s first underground park, it will be tucked into a former trolley terminal in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, with a design by James Ramsey and Daniel Barasch. “The transformation of an old, forgotten trolley terminal into a dynamic cultural space designed for a 21st century city is truly a New York story,” says Barasch. “We know with input from the community and the city, we can make the Lowline a unique, inspiring space that everyone can enjoy.”

The 606, Chicago, Illinois by Collins Engineering, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Frances Whitehead

Chicago converted its abandoned Bloomingdale Rail Line into a 2.7 mile linear park called the 606 (named for the zip code prefix shared by everyone in the city.) The greenway connects four separate neighborhoods and includes a park and trail system with elevated trails for bikers, runners and walkers as well as event spaces and lots of greenery. The project was designed by the firm Frances Whitehead, which approached it as a ‘living work of art,’ demonstrating the vital role that arts play in the fabric of the city.

The Underline, Miami, Florida by James Corner Field Operations

Down in Miami, a stretch beneath an elevated rail line could become ‘The Underline,’ a new public park by James Corner Field Operations, one of the studios behind the High Line in NYC. The 10-mile-long park and urban trail would sit beneath the city’s MetroRail, following an existing bike path called the M-Path, but widening it and adding a parallel pedestrian path that winds through various ecosystems of native plants and habitats for birds and butterflies. Spaces for arts and recreation would be scattered along the way, like pop-up structures and a bike tune-up station.

Next Page - Click Below to Read More:
Rail To Trail 12 U S Park Projects Reclaiming Urban Infrastructure

Using a staggering volume of LEGO bricks, a series of ten famous architecture firms has constructed a series of miniature built environments, deploying them on the High Line in New York City and encouraging the public to play with and reconfigure their work.

Organized by installation artist Olafur Eliasson (images by Timothy Schenck), The Collectivity Project features contributions from an all-star cast of local and international designers from: James Corner Field Operations, BIG, David M Schwarz Architects, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, OMA New York, Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Robert A.M. Stern Architects, Selldorf Architects, SHoP and Steven Holl Architects.

The results range from pointy towers and crooked skyscrapers to giant trees and complex landscapes, all created from versatile white bricks that can be added, removed and used interchangeably.

These are also not meant to be finished or stand-alone works – visitors and passers by are encouraged to remake this scaled-down urban landscape according to their own whims, transforming the architecture piece by piece over the coming months.

Already, people have begun the conversion process, creating additions to bridges between the disparate LEGO buildings.

Sitting the shadow of Hudson Yards, a floating megablock toward one terminus of the elevated park, those interacting with the work are encouraged to draw inspiration from their under-construction surroundings as well the historical hybrid of raised rail and modern pathway that is the High Line itself.

Deemed unsafe and left to rot, a stretch of highway in a prime location beside a train station in Seoul, South Korea will soon get a new life as an elevated park. Built in the ’70s, the structure provided access to and from a local market that served as a crucial point of trade in the region for decades, but vehicles were banned after failed inspections in 2006. For years it has sat unused while pedestrians are forced to take a long route around it to get to the station.

It was supposed to be demolished, but officials consulted residents and experts to see if there was another option. Pedestrian walkways can be hard to come by in any city, and the dozens of elevated parks that are popping up around the world prove that reclaiming and rehabilitating abandoned infrastructure can be an economic boon as they bring new green space to urban settings and create new connections between neighborhoods.

Dutch architecture firm MVRDV won a contest to design the park, filling it with massive circular plant pots filled with 254 different species of flowers, shrubs and trees to create a “living dictionary of the natural heritage of Korea.” A greenhouse will grow new plants to populate the pots, and pedestrians can stop at a number of cafes, street markets, flower shops and other vendors.

Once completed, the 55-foot-high structure will cut the walk around the railway station from 25 minutes to 11, and is expected to generate 1.83 times its cost in economic benefits.

Following in the footsteps of the United States’ largest urban center, the 2nd and 3rd most populous cities in the country are each (respectively) developing and building extensive elevated parks, inspired in part by the success of The High Line in NYC.

The Los Angeles River Greenway Project

On the West Coast, Los Angeles has a plan to connect and create 50 miles of continuous bike and walking paths through the city. Over half of these segments are completed but the whole is not yet contiguous, forcing cyclists and pedestrians through dangerous crossings and other workarounds.

Ramping up support for the last few years, the LA River Greenway 2020 project includes provisions for public space as well as private enterprise, with everything from gathering and performance areas to dining venues, yoga classes and bike-in movie theaters in mind.

The Chicago 606 & Bloomingdale Trail Project

Meanwhile, in the Midwest, Chicago’s Bloomingdale Trail is the centerpiece of a larger plan dubbed The 606. Already midway through construction, much of the multiple-mile trail follows existing east-and-west-running railroad tracks set a story above street level.

Next Page - Click Below to Read More:
High Line West Chicago La On Track For Elevated Greenways

New York’s elevated park is expanding in new directions both physically and proverbially, its new addition a stark circular shift from the overall linear nature of the existing spaces.

Situated at the intersection of West 30th Street and 10th Avenue, the lush green Spur is at the heart of the new High Line section, providing a fresh kind of urban gathering, interaction and performance space.

Converting more disused rail tracks into raised green space, the nest-like bowl of seating and vegetation provides both background sound relief from the surrounding city and views back out onto its streets below.

Designed by James Corner Field Operations in collaboration with Diller Scofidio + Renfro, this pivotal turning point (quite literally a bend in the overall plan of the park) features woodland grasses, maples, perennials and ferns. The rest of the park bends up into the rail yards at this key point, wrapping back west across Manhattan toward the Hudson River.