Water, Water Everywhere: Destiny, Politics and Commodification on New York’s Water Edge

[EN] In 1973, in the midst of an economic downturn, New York City´s waterfront was envisioned as an enterprise for an urban renewal. This paper reflects on the interplay among a set of actors which was key in launching a more open, accessible, diverse and thrilling city´s edge. The intersecting condition among corporate capitalism, real estate, political interests and talented design illustrates the waterfront as particularly instrumental in the representation of a desire city to live in. However, the case study of two relevant built projects, Battery Park City and Gantry Plaza State Park, showcases different results in the challenge of the city´s waterfront strategy giving over its innovation, privileging instead the rapid commodification of the architecture and the unbalance between public and private interests.[ES] En 1973, en mitad de una grave recesión económica, el margen del Bajo Hudson de la ciudad de Nueva York se concibió como una oportunidad para una renovación urbana. Este artículo reflexiona sobre la interacción de un conjunto de actores que fue clave a la hora de lanzar un proyecto de una ciudad más abierta, accesible, diversa y emocionante. La intersección de intereses entre el capitalismo corporativo, el apetito inmobiliario, los intereses políticos y el diseño de talentosos autores logró la transformación del límite fluvial urbano, una estrategia particularmente instrumental en la proyección de una ciudad deseable para vivir en ella. Sin embargo, el caso de estudio de dos proyectos construidos, Battery Park City y Gantry Plaza State Park, muestra diferentes resultados en el desafío de esta estrategia urbana. Ambas obras entregan su innovación al diseño urbano, privilegiando la rápida mercantilización de la arquitectura y el desequilibrio entre intereses públicos y privados.University of Michigan, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban PlanningMorcillo Pallares, A. (2021). 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The New York Times, May 6, 2013.Goldberger, Paul. "Public Space Gets a New Cachet in New York." The New York Times, May 22, 1988.Gordon, David L. A. Battery Park City: Politics and Planning on the New York Waterfront. Ontario: Overseas Publishers Association, 1997.Halprin, Lawrence. New York, New York: a study of the quality, character, and meaning of open space in urban design. New York: Seymour B. Durst Old York Library, 1968.Hein, Carola. "The Port Cityscape: Spatial and institutional approaches to port city relationships." PORTUSplus, no. 8. "Governance in Port City Regions" (December 2019): 1-8.Hoyle, Brian. "Global and Local Change on the Port-City Waterfront." Geographical Review 90, no. 3 (July 2000).Huxtable, Ada Louise. "City of Hope, City of Despair." The New York Times, June 26, 1966. https://doi.org/10.2307/3250860Huxtable, Ada Louise. "Upheaval at Battery. Stock Exchange Urban-Renewal Plan Posing Touchy Architectural Issues." The New York Times, October 10, 1963.Jacobs, Karrie. "The rise of New York's new leisure waterfront." Curbed New York, August 31, 2018.Kay, Larson. "On the Beach." New York Magazine, September 5, 1985.Kay, Larson. "Sculpture in the Sand." New York Magazine, July 30, 1984.Meyer, Han. City and Port: Urban Planning as a Cultural Venture in London, Barcelona, New York, and Rotterdam. Changing Relations between Public Urban Space and Large-Scale Infrastructure. Utrecht: International Books, 1999.Muschamp, Herbert. "On the Hudson, Launching Minds Instead of Shipping?" The New York Times, June 6, 1993.Muschamp, Herbert. "Queens West: Why Not Something Great?" The New York Times, May 22, 1994.Muschamp, Herbert. "Where Iron Gives Way to Beauty and Games." The New York Times, December 13, 1998.McGill Library. "Moshe Safdie Archive." Habitat I New York. Accessed November 10, 2019. http://cac.mcgill.ca/moshesafdie/fullrecord.php?ID=10818&d=1.Pasternak, Anne. 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CCFF. Robotic Concrete Extrusion for Funicular Formworks

Today architectural workflows for the development of complex geometries and their translation to physical objects rely on computational processes. The generation of form has become intrinsically tied to computer simulation in response to data sets and external information. Prior to the advent of these technologies, forms were generated and understood through analogue methodologies that depended on the behavior of the material in response to a set of physical conditions. The ambition of the research, ‘Catenary Concrete Funicular Formwork’ (CCFF), is to investigate hi/low tech possibilities for generating form and space at the interstices of the digital and the handmade. The study leverages the use of physical catenary and funicular modeling in conjunction with the precision of robotic concrete extrusion for the development of pattern-based thin concrete shells