{"id":2357,"date":"2007-05-29T11:05:59","date_gmt":"2007-05-29T19:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2007\/05\/governors_island_as_wedge_issue.html"},"modified":"2007-05-29T11:05:59","modified_gmt":"2007-05-29T19:05:59","slug":"governors_islan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/05\/governors_islan.html","title":{"rendered":"Governors Island As Wedge Issue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some <a href=\"http:\/\/nymag.com\/news\/features\/32387\/\">bold plans to remake Governors Island<\/a> refuse to shy away from the important debates &#8212; stem cells and Al Gore, for example:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>The Philadelphia firm WRT, teamed with Urban Strategies, from Toronto, mixed its inspirational metaphors. &#8220;We were looking at forms in nature like oysters and pearls and stem cells,&#8221; says WRT partner Margie Ruddick. &#8220;Things that have a forgiving architecture, and where one thing is nested in another.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Her team&#8217;s plan carves a series of interlocking ovals into the flat southern landscape, nesting a play lawn inside a larger great meadow, and an artificial hill inside a new wetland at the southern end. Rather than building up the center, the WRT scheme builds up the edge, stringing a series of structures that could house a spa and retreat center on a rocky promontory, plus a working waterfront along the Brooklyn side. These buildings, however, would not pop up out of the landscape but be part of it: Green roofs would slope up from the interior toward the water at one or two stories, turning the center of the island into a protected bowl.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have been reading <\/em>Last Child in the Woods<em>,&#8221; Ruddick says. &#8220;It is about how those of us who connected very closely to nature as children have a sense of responsibility for it. I thought at one point of calling it Gore Island.&#8221; To this end, the team envisions a camp in a new forested ravine and a sustainable farm and garden. The southwest side of the island has evolved into a sandbar beach and reef. The plan has a hotel on the west side (perhaps one of the new Starwood eco-hotels), but not for the business traveler: &#8220;It should be considered a retreat.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Location Scout: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/bigmap\/manhattan\/governorsisland\/index.htm\">Governors Island<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some bold plans to remake Governors Island refuse to shy away from the important debates &#8212; stem cells and Al Gore, for example: The Philadelphia firm WRT, teamed with Urban Strategies, from Toronto, mixed its inspirational metaphors. &#8220;We were looking at forms in nature like oysters and pearls and stem cells,&#8221; says WRT partner Margie [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sliding_into_the_abyss_of_elitism_pretentiousness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2357\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}