The Liberation of Ground

The Liberation of Ground New York City is dominated by different kinds of regulations and divided into several hierarchies. It is a kind of state of mixture with something idolized and something forgotten. The ground level separates the city into two parts. Above the ground, the city was well-organized as a grid with the image of magnificence. Every day countless information and capital flow into the rest of the world from here, New York, the place where people purse their dreams and success. On the other hand, under the ground there is a different New York City with the sense of uneasiness or even fear. The frustrated people, who live in this forgotten area, attempt to escape from the real world where they may have suffered disappointing experience.

 However, if people change to another perspective, a different scene will be seen. Will you not feel uncomfortable when walking through the urban jungle? Almost every inch of the land is occupied by the high buildings which leave such poor space for people. Unlike upper-city, the underground part is undoubtedly the utopia with absolutely freedom. Compared with the disappointment and dissatisfaction in the upper city, someone under the ground achieved self-fulfillment and created their original mental world. The underground, which used to be a forgotten area, begins to be remembered again as the origin of the MUNY (music under New York) and something similar.

 Is it possible that the underground is more attractive than the over-ground?

The interaction between underground and over-ground cannot be inhibited by the ground-line any more. Shall we connect those two parts of New York City and integrate their respective ideal into the reality through architectural operation?

Separating the blocks from buildings, turning the slice of the ground, then we get the upper and lower part of the city together. The opened upper parts will pass the passion to the underground. The activated underground will play a more energetic role in the future. The ground level becomes a platform of exchanging. Through connecting both the brightness of the urban and the shades of the underground, we hope a new concept of social ideology can be given.

The level system poses itself as an intermediary between the city and its fundamental part. A new version of the city, a new dimension to explore, understand and live will appear. The vision of this New York describes an equal and parallel system which develops through a novel process of overturning the ground, in harmony with the different kinds of social ideology. This process of merging needs time for it to be understood and realized, therefore, with participation from the citizens.

New York, born as a colony island, its future vision will be imagined from the harmony of diversification.