Heatherwick Studio

Little Island Park

Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck

LITTLE ISLAND PARK

Heatherwick Studio

AREA
11000 m²

LOCATION
New York, United States

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER
Arup

CATEGORY
Public Space, Park

YEAR
2021

DESIGN DIRECTOR
Thomas Heatherwick

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
Arup

LANDSCAPE
MNLA

PROJECT LEADERS
Paul Westwood, Neil Hubbard

GROUP LEADER
Mat Cash

EXECUTIVE ARCHITECTS
Standard Architects

TECHNICAL DESIGN LEADER
Nick Ling

PHOTOGRAPHS
Timothy Schenck, Angela Weiss, Getty Images, China News Service, Getty Images, Alexi Rosenfeld, Getty Images

PROJECT TEAM
Sofia Amodio, Simona Auteri, Mark Burrows, Jorge Xavier Méndez- Cáceres, John Cruwys, Antoine van Erp, Alex Flood, Michal Gryko, Ben Holmes, Ben Jacobs, Francis McCloskey, Stepan Martinovsky, Simon Ng, Wojtek Nowak, Giovanni Parodi, Enrique Pujana, Akari Takebayashi, Ondrej Tichý, Ahira Sanjeet, Charles Wu, Meera Yadave

MAKING TEAM
Jordan Bailiff, Einar Blixhavn, Darragh Casey, Hayley Henry, Hannah Parker, Luke Plumbley, Jeff Powers

CLIENT
Hudson River Park Trust (HRPT) & Pier 55 Project Fund (P55P)

MARINE ENGINEERS
MRCE

COST CONSULTANTS
Gardiner & Theobald

MAIN CONTRACTOR
Hunter Roberts Construction Group

Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck
Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck

Little Island is a public park that shelters three new performance venues on the Hudson River.

Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck
Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck

Designed as a haven for people and wildlife, it is a green oasis, held above the water by sculptural planters, and located just a short walk across a gangplank from Manhattan’s Lower West Side.

Heatherwick Studio was initially invited by philanthropist Barry Diller and the Hudson River Park Trust to create a pavilion for a new pier off the southwest of Manhattan.

Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck
Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck

Instead of designing a decorative object to sit in the Hudson River Park, the design team saw an opportunity to rethink what a pier could be.

The starting point was not the structure, but the experience for visitors: the excitement of being over the water, the feeling of leaving the city behind and being immersed in greenery – inspired by Central Park, where it’s possible to forget that you are in the midst of the most densely populated city in the United States.

Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck
Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck

Piers were traditionally flat to allow boats to dock, but did they have to be? In contrast to the flat streets of Manhattan, the design team wanted to create a new topography for the city, which could rise up to shape a variety of spaces.

The first iteration was a curled leaf form floating on the water, its veins rising like ribs at the edges to shelter the space from the wind.

Little Island Park
© Angela Weiss, Getty Images
Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck

The idea of raising the park on its foundations came from the existing wooden piles in the water, remnants of the many piers that used to extend from the shoreline of Manhattan.

Beneath the visible tips of the wood, the piles have become an important habitat for marine life and are a protected breeding ground for fish.

Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck
Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck
Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck

Heatherwick Studio envisaged the pier as a complete experience; a single, cohesive object, rather than unrelated elements stuck together. New piles would be necessary to support any type of pier.

Instead of sticks holding up a deck, the piles become the deck – they extend into planters that join together to create the park’s surface.

Little Island Park
© China News Service, Getty Images
Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck

The height of the piles varies to create the park’s contours: the corner of the pier is lifted to allow sunlight to reach the marine habitat, and the edge falls to define hills, viewpoints and to carve out a natural amphitheatre for performances. In this way, the pier and its supporting structure are one.

The planters or ‘pots’ are filled with more than a hundred different species of indigenous trees and plants, which encourage biodiversity and are able to thrive in New York’s climate – each corner of the island represents a different microclimate. To determine the pots’ form, the design team looked to nature and the mosaic of ice that forms around the wooden piles when the river freezes.

Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck
Little Island Park
© Alexi Rosenfeld, Getty Images

The studio reinterpreted this in a tessellated pattern that appears organic but uses repeated elements that could be standardised for fabrication. Care was taken to vary the angle and repetition of pots at the perimeter, where they were most visible. To give the structural concrete a smooth, tactile quality, Heatherwick Studio worked closely with a local fabricator. The precast components were transported by boats and assembled on site, minimising disruption to the city.


Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck
Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck
Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck
Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck
Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck
Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck
Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck
Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck
Little Island Park
© Timothy Schenck
Little Island Park
© China News Service, Getty Images


Little Island Park
Park plan spring
Little Island Park
General plan
Little Island Park
General plan
Little Island Park
General plan
Little Island Park
General plan
Little Island Park
Park plan fall
Little Island Park
General park plan
Little Island Park
General park plan winter


Little Island Park
General pier section A
Little Island Park
General pier section B
Little Island Park
Detail section
Little Island Park
Geological section

Heatherwick Studio
T +44 20 78338800
Heatherwick Studio
55 Argyle St, London WC1H 8EE, United Kingdom