The Process and Products of the High Line

Abstract

When you correctly coordinate the process and products of urban design, you can transform cities. The High Line project and the Special West Chelsea District are successful examples of such coordination applied to the transformation of a neighborhood. In the timeline you can see the nested, iterative process of urban design where politics, finance, and design intersect. You can see how the same process of designing the question, designing the solution, and then implementing the solution plays out almost simultaneously at every scale and across every product of urban design. Whether it is a rule (e.g., the policy change to support reuse of the High Line or the zoning text establishing the rules of the Special West Chelsea District), a plan (e.g., the economic study or the final design), or a product (e.g., the opening of the first section of the park or the construction of the HL23 building and the transfer of its remaining air rights to build 100 Eleventh Avenue), the process of urban design was used to make the transformation happen.