The new Eco Park and City Beach, designed by SHOP Architects and Ken Smith Workshop, is located at Pier 35, creating a public area on the northern boundary of the East River Riverfront project and providing the local community with the much needed waterfront. Leisure space is a creative habitat restoration park.
The design of the dock space uses a form similar to the accordion to create a "folding" feel. A series of landscaped lawns and dunes form a riverside walkway, planted with sloping folded walls as a “green” billboard to the city. The
A588 weather-resistant steel screen wall, 35 feet high and over 300 feet long, effectively blocked the shacks in the health department at Pier 36. The materials used in the project, such as wire mesh and weathering steel wall panels, remind people of the history of East River used to be a working dock.
In addition, under the strong support of the New York Department of State’s Division of Coastal Resource, Mussel Beach was created as an ecological landscape prototype that recreates the character of the historic East River coastline. The folding shape of the dock extends down into the river, forming a sloped site that connects the tides that rise and fall every day. The characteristics of the habitat park such as the sloping precast concrete floor, the surface texture and the rockery in the tidal zone are all designed specifically for the raft.
