Special Mention by the LILA 2025 Jury
Gansevoort Peninsula exemplifies a sophisticated effort in programmatic stacking—a compositional strategy frequently employed in the design of American public parks in dense cities. The project assembles a complex sequence of functions: viewpoints, ecological zones, rain garden, an outdoor gym, a dog park, promenades, boardwalks, sports field, a beach, art installation, grove, and the obligatory nod to the picturesque. In dialogue with its flamboyant neighbor, Little Island, the Gansevoort Peninsula establishes itself as a rational, programme based group of high-resolution spaces, an urban interface for a long list of activities.
Amidst this surgically orchestrated layering, one particular zone destabilizes the otherwise expected typologies and ambiences. It is by the southern edge, where the Upland Sandy Bluff meets a sequence of descending hardscape platforms—both steps and terraces—that slide into the Hudson River, allowing visitors to engage directly with the water’s edge. This gesture produces a more abstract encounter. As the tide advances and recedes, water interacts with the horizontal planes, generating an ever-shifting dialogue between solidity and liquidity, stability and flux. Suspended above this tidal choreography is David Hammons’ Whitney-commissioned sculpture »Day’s End«, where the presence of the artwork underlines the absence of its artistic and historic references – a demolished warehouse that hosted Gordon Matta-Clark’s artwork of the same name. Its minimal geometry enhances the surrounding emptiness, allowing history, interpretation, and meaning to remain unresolved. In this moment, Gansevoort Peninsula transcends its functional inventory and opens into a space of heightened ambiguity—a site where natural processes, bodily presence, and cultural memory are held in delicate suspension.
– from the award statements
See all LILA recognitions or visit LILA websiteHudson River Park’s 5.5-acre Gansevoort Peninsula transforms a former sanitation site into Manhattan’s first public beach and features the first salt marsh on the Manhattan side of the Hudson River, creating a resilient shoreline that invites New Yorkers to engage with the Hudson River.
Shaped by community input, the park thoughtfully balances active and passive spaces for relaxation and recreation, while drawing people to its varied edges. Key features include a multi-use sports field, urban beach, salt marsh, boardwalks, topographic lawn, picnic area, concession stand, restrooms, dog park, gardens, and outdoor gym, all while maximizing waterfront access and views.
A defining characteristic of the project is how the design embraces each side of the peninsula and offers new ways to engage with the river, elongating the transition from land to water and contributing to a healthier and more resilient shoreline.
The southern edge is home to Manhattan’s first public beach, with a rocky seating ledge, tidal pools, and a new access point for small boaters. Other amenities include shade trees, beach furniture, and a mist feature for cooling. David Hammons’ Day’s End sculpture, frames the beach, echoing New York’s industrial past and Gordon Matta-Clark’s 1975 artwork that cut openings into the Pier 52 shed that once occupied the site. River boulders, concrete blocks, and rip rap protect the beach from changing tides and rough waters. The upland beach transitions to a series of dunes with a boardwalk and Pine Grove, inspired by New York’s Barrier Islands showcasing native species like Pitch Pine, Spicebush, Little Bluestem, Cardinal Flower, and New England Aster to increase biodiversity, add seasonal interest, and withstand wind and salt spray.
The northern edge features a salt marsh, the first of its kind on the Manhattan side of the Hudson River. The salt marsh, along with submerged aquatic habitats that include reef balls and gabions seeded with 20 million juvenile oysters, provides valuable habitat, improves resiliency and serves as an educational touchpoint to learn about the environmental benefits of intertidal ecosystems. The salt marsh has also become a popular destination for birds, and local naturalists have identified at least one bird species here that has never been seen before in the Park—the marsh wren. A series of balconies and get-downs allow visitors and student groups to get closer to the water and support the Park’s estuary education programs. Additionally, the design of the shoreline transects to the north and the south that feature intertidal and sub-tidal elements such as the salt marsh, tidal pools, reef balls and oyster reef-cages, has notably served as a precedent for permitting upcoming and future resilience projects throughout New York City and its surrounding waterways.
The 13th Ave Promenade on the western edge celebrates the one-block stretch that remains of 13th Ave, a historical feature unique to this site with lounge seating and a picnic grove.
A popular multi-use “U13” ballfield, highly desired by the community, is located in the center of the Peninsula, attracting various age groups and people from all over the city. The field is complemented by bleacher seating on its edges for different sports seasons and an elegant gateway building with public restrooms, a concession stand, and park maintenance facilities.
Gansevoort Peninsula’s design gives it a new purpose, transforming a former inaccessible sanitation operations site into Hudson River Park’s largest green space, reflecting the neighborhood and its needs, celebrating its history, and imagining a new future for the river and estuary.
Project Data
Landscape Architecture, Project Lead, Urban Design, Public Engagement: Field Operations
Architecture: nARCHITECTS
Other credits:
Client: Hudson River Park Trust
Civil & Traffic Engineering: Philip Habib & Associates
Marine & Geotech Engineering, Topographic Survey: Langan
Site MEP & Electrical Engineering: Altieri Sebor Wieber, LLC
Building MEP & Site Electrical: PlusGroup
Building & Site Structural Engineering: Silman
Natural Resources & Ecology: eDesign Dynamics
Hydrology & Sediment Modeling: CAS Group, LLC
Bathymetric Survey: KS Engineers
Soil Science: Craul Land Scientists
Permitting & Waterfront Review: TMS Waterfront
Expediting: JAM
Irrigation: Northern Designs
Lighting Design: Horton Lees Brogden Lighting Design
Signage & Wayfinding Design: Pentagram
Cost Estimating: Dharam Consulting
Code & Life Safety Consulting: Holmes Keogh Associates
Security: Thornton Tomasetti
Contractor: Gilbane Building Company and Invictus Engineering
Photography: Barrett Doherty, Timothy Schenck, Kate Glicksberg
