Little Island builds hills above a New York river

When walking along the riverside, the path along the water is generally horizontal. The river is next to you and your feet are on the ground. The relationship is a little different in this photo from Little Island, a park over the water in New York. Trees and paths sit atop supports rising out of the water.

The top of the pillar opens like a large bowl. Rather than being placed next to each other at the same height, they rise and fall to create a single terrain. It goes one step further than building a bridge over a river and creates a hill for walking.

The end of the pillar becomes the ground

Little Island, designed by Heatherwick Studio, opened in 2021. The design began with a pier damaged by Hurricane Sandy and the old wooden piles around it. The structure rising from the water was continued in the form of a new park.

The park rests on 132 precast concrete supports. Their tops connect at different heights to form hills, paths and places to pause. The structure that supports the ground becomes the shape of the landscape.

This is interesting. Rather than attaching a special shape to the surface after the building was completed, the appearance of the park is the result of thinking about what would support it. When you look at it from the water's edge, you can see the principle, and when you go up, it changes into the terrain beneath your feet.

If you go up a little, what you see changes

Paths connect the park’s spaces and provide places to enjoy the view. As the height changes, the position from which you view the river and the city also changes. Instead of extending a flat surface, the designers introduced rises and dips that change the view as people walk.

The park contains trees, various plants, and a space for people to gather. The unusual form draws attention, but its everyday uses take place on top: walking along a path, pausing and looking across the river.

Little Island makes different impressions from below and above. From below, you can see large bowls floating on the water, and from above, you forget that they are bowls and walk along the paths. It is a park with a striking structure, and what the structure is trying to accomplish is to give people land to walk on.