Following a line running parallel to Wall Street and the lower edge of the World Trade Center site is a slim east-west pedestrian passage that moves from Louise Nevelson Plaza and the huge Dubuffet sculpture in Chase Plaza west to Liberty Park (recently renamed Zuccotti Park). On this same east-west alignment a new park two blocks long and a block wide is planned as part of the southern edge of the WTC rebuilding. Separating these two open space systems is a block of nondescript medium-height privately owned buildings, destined, after the WTC reconstruction is finished, to become a cluster of high-rise towers - more than likely, residential towers.
The studio focused was the design of these towers - such that
1) the structures are configured at their lower levels to afford and intensify substantial movements between the two east-west park systems,
2) the adjacent WTC development is visually linked with the existing city,
3) a public ground-level venue is provided for the arts (more specifically, The Drawing Center, recently rejected from the WTC site as potentially not “nice”), and
4) ecologically sensitive housing is afforded embodying open green spaces above ground level.