ABOVE TIMES SQUARE
Type: Urban Design
Location: New York, NY
outdoor
Design: 2017
Design: LOT-EK Ada Tolla + Giuseppe Lignano, Principals, with Mark Robbins
Times Square accommodates tourists and natives, two populations with whose uses of the space often overlap and diverge. As a tourist destination the space and the crowds are the event.
Elevated catwalks provide access above the street and -- like Fred Astaire dancing up the walls -- up the sides of the buildings, inhabiting the spaces behind the billboards. The proposal enhances passage and allows stopping to view the Square. It affords multiple and varied vantage points and can be variously programmed, changing to accommodate larger crowds and the everyday viewing of daily traffic in the square.
1. An elevated series of paths allow for passage above the bowtie, connecting with side streets, with the raised portion of the new TKTS booth and with the subway system below. This new layer of circulation has flexible components that can adjust to specific events, such a collapsible stage and bleachers.
2. Activated billboards provide views and amenities such as comfort stations, lunchtime bench perches above the street and visitor. They also provide general balconies for the spectacle and box seats and platforms for politicians and at special events. They are also elevated media staging areas for film and TV camera crews, to record special event.