The Lowline aims to build the world’s first underground park using innovative technology to bring sunlight underground. As part of the vision, “remote skylights” would concentrate natural sunlight at street level, and then channel it underground, generating enough light to support photosynthesis. The core of the “Imagining the Lowline” exhibited the installation of a solar collector, a canopy distributor, and a small-scale green park, to help the community envision the technology and its stunning aesthetic elements.
As part of the “Experiments in Motion” initiative commissioned by Audi of America and in partnership with the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP), nine student visions were presented along with a 45-foot-long suspended model of Manhattan’s subway grid that contextualizes the Lowline within the city’s huge inventory of underground spaces. Researched with the help of the MTA, DOT, and the Center for Urban Real Estate (CURE), the 1:1500-scale replica of Manhattan’s mobility infrastructure presented a never-before-seen-view of every subway station on the island.
The preliminary engineering study for the Lowline is still weeks away from being finalized. However, together with additional information on the Lowline project and the community it will serve, “Imagining the Lowline” the most important was engage visitors in a visually stimulating potential future and continue a growing global discussion on the future of new public spaces– and the unclaimed value the urban areas underground.
