- Architecture & development
Architectural team Jeffrey Lee + Rui Liu + Tia Qiu has just presented a unique skyscraper design to the city of Manhattan. The team took a radical approach to designing a green building: Vertical Central Park (Central Park from another point of view). Sky gardens and a natural source of light and ventilation were an important aspect.
'Central Park, but vertical? What? How?' you're probably thinking. It sounds strange, but it's actually quite an interesting idea. When the island of Manhattan got its urban concept in 1811, space for streams, rocky forests, fields or other natural features wasn't taken into account. No consideration was given to the prominent physical elements that shape the island, not even the coastline. The only piece of green there is, is the well-known Central Park in New York, but whether that is enough to preserve the city's living ecosystem remains a question. That's exactly why the architects Jeffrey Lee, Rui Liu and Tia Qiu presented their concept to extend the rectangular shape of the park into a green building to Manhattan. 
"Architectural team Jeffrey Lee + Rui Liu + Tia Qiu has just presented a unique skyscraper design that attempts to preserve the outdoor greenery in Manhattan."
Instead of including a typical atrium, the team proposes to use the Central Park concept as a skyscraper. In this way, the building will have vertical sky gardens and will be able to offer private living spaces. And it seems that Lee, Liu and Qiu managed to achieve a functional and dynamic vertical aggregation of volumes by reversing Central Park. They propose to replace the central void with a green atrium. The central atrium of the skyscraper then becomes the park area and the adjacent access roads become the plate of the skyscraper.
Almost two million people live on an area of 60 square kilometres on the island of Manhattan. That is about 27,000 people per square kilometre. Not surprisingly, new commercial and residential buildings are being built skyward. That's why the example of Central Park is almost crucial for the city's urban planning. It is an attempt to preserve and, over time, even expand the outdoor greenery, but above all to re-introduce the element of backyards.
Whether the design will actually be realized is not yet known, but we think it's a pretty nice concept!