Manhattan’s Little Island

Amid the remains of the old Pier 54, Little Island rises on a platform in the Hudson River. The stunningly shaped green space by Heatherwick Studio is Manhattan’s latest attraction. In serpentine lines, footpaths lead up to a lookout point to the southwest and past 100 different tree species, an amphitheatre with around 700 seats and a leeward sunbathing lawn at the centre of the grounds. In this video, Simon Ng and Paul Westwood of Heatherwick Studio speak about the importance of mockups in the form-finding process for Little Island.

Heatherwick Studio is a team of over 180 problem solvers dedicated to making the physical world around us better for everyone. Heatherwick Studio is focusing on large scale projects in cities all over the world, prioritise those with a positive social impact. Working as practical inventors with no signature style, the motivation is to design soulful and interesting places which embrace and celebrate the complexities of the real world. Their approach driving everything is to lead from human experience rather than any fixed design dogma.
The studio’s completed projects include a number of internationally celebrated buildings, including the recently completed Little Island at Pier 55, a new park and performance space in New York, the award-winning Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, Learning Hub at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, Coal Drops Yard in London, and the UK Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo 2010. The studio is currently working on 30 live projects in ten countries. These include Lantern House, a new residential building for Related in Manhattan, mixed-use projects in Shanghai and Tokyo, as well as major new headquarters for Google in Silicon Valley and London (in collaboration with BIG).

Video: Thomas Heatherwick on Little Island

Read more in Detail 3.2022 and in our databank Detail Inspiration.