Making connections: Grimshaw’s Fulton Centre, Manhattan


The trains now pulling into Manhattan’s Fulton Center are several years late, but welcome nonetheless... The Grimshaw-designed transit hub, just opened, stands out in the subway system for its natural light and clear sightlines, inspired by the city’s great civic transit halls. It is certainly attracting the attention of the commuters, who are pausing to view the unique Sky Reflector-Net overhead that is bouncing light around the new spaces.


Blueprint

Words Cate St Hill

On the lower tip of Manhattan, to the east of the surging development of the World Trade Center site that will see towers by both Rogers and Foster rise, busy New York commuters now have another reason to look up. For here has just opened Grimshaw's long-awaited Fulton Center transit hub, the focal point of which is a dramatic atrium that ascends 40m and is topped by a conical dome that brings natural light deep into the subterranean station.

The central element of the station is a conical atrium that brings light deep into the subterranean space.
The central element of the station is a conical atrium that brings light deep into the subterranean space.

It was first conceived in 2003 to provide connections to trains serving New Jersey as well as, via an underground passageway, the upcoming World Trade Center transportation hub designed by Santiago Calatrava. (Eight years behind schedule and $2bn over budget, it is due to open in December 2015.) Grimshaw's project was driven by a need to improve connectivity and ease congestion in an area that is seeing an unprecedented wave of regeneration post 9/11. Its construction replaces four buildings along the eastern side of Broadway, which were demolished in 2007. Once underground, passengers now encounter an open design, with brighter, widened passageways as well as 2,800 sq m of new retail space.

Fulton Center transit hub

In a landmark district of Manhattan -- the equivalent of a conservation area in the UK -- where there is no danger of being overshadowed by surrounding buildings, the transit hub's position triggered its conical form. 'The subway system in Lower Manhattan is very shallow; it was built by a cut-and-cover technique so the stations themselves are often only 7m below street level,' says Grimshaw's project partner Vincent Chang. 'We were very excited at the prospect of allowing daylight and direct views into surrounding streets to play a defining role as the signature components of our design.

Broadway Elevation

Most Manhattan subway stations involve fairly convoluted journeys through buildings down to ticket halls and platforms and we thought there was an opportunity to provide a more humane environment, with clearer sightlines and more generous spaces -- very much inspired by the city's great civic transit halls such as Grand Central Station.'

Escalators link the ‘retail donut’ to the central concourse below. Photo: John Ewing
Escalators link the 'retail donut' to the central concourse below. Photo: John Ewing

The Fulton Center is essentially a three-storey building clad in glass, set around an eight-storey dome structure. At the summit, a 20m-wide circular skylight, known as an oculus, is orientated to the south and decorated with glass lenses to capture light and redirect it far into the station and the century-old subway platforms below. The building has two levels below ground, one for the ticket hall and the other a lower concourse.

The transit hub connects 11 subway lines and is expected to serve 300,000 passengers a day. Photo: John Ewing
The transit hub connects 11 subway lines and is expected to serve 300,000 passengers a day. Photo: John Ewing

It is also connected to an early 20th-century building, the Corbin Building. This had originally been slated for demolition, but in the end was kept and restored to give additional retail and commercial office space. Full-scale work on the main building began in January 2011 and steel began to rise for the oculus in the summer of the same year.

The station is clad in glass, enabling views from street level to the concourses below.

The station is clad in glass, enabling views from street level to the concourses below
The station is clad in glass, enabling views from street level to the concourses below

Inside, the dome features a delicate cable net structure, known formally as Sky Reflector-Net, that is lined with nearly 1,000 polished aluminium shields to further bounce light around the space. In New York, the Transit Authority devotes a percentage of the costs of construction to the integration of artwork. Developed in collaboration with engineer Arup and Manhattan-based artist James Carpenter, the Net's hyperbolic form meant that each panel had to be fabricated to a unique shape and installed in precisely the right place, all while the station was still in operation.

The station is clad in glass, enabling views from street level to the concourses below

Stretching between the oculus and the two floors below it, the Net terminates one-and-a-half storeys above street level, just above the station's shopping concourses. A cavity between the Net and the dome structure hides a series of maintenance walkways or galleries as well as ventilation ducts to exhaust air in the event of a fire. Individually the panels are translucent, but together they take on the blueish sheen of the sky. 'It's very transparent and light in its construction and it very much fits with the notion of this building being very porous, very dynamic in terms of the movement of people,' says Carpenter.

The station is clad in glass, enabling views from street level to the concourses below
The station is clad in glass, enabling views from street level to the concourses below

Comprising 112 tensioned cables and some 200 highstrength rods, the 23m-high Net will change subtly over the course of its lifetime according to air pressure, indoor temperature and building movement. Indeed, Arup developed around 815 scenarios based on these possible permutations. Says Carpenter: 'Our goal was to try and find a way that we could inform day-to-day experiences of the people who come in and use this transit center. Everyday someone will walk in here and there'll be a different quality of light in the dome overhead, a different view of the sky, a different sensibility about how light effects the day-to-day movement through the city.'

olished aluminium shields to bounce light around the space
The station is clad in glass, enabling views from street level to the concourses below

Chang, who uses the station himself, agrees on its effect on commuters: 'It's been quite remarkable following social media and then going down to the station and seeing the number of people that I think are surprised by the Net,' he says. 'The station has an openness, there's a great deal more clarity of sightlines across the entire subway system, which we think really assists in a more intuitive way-finding. There are some people who basically pause for a moment and look up and see daylight flooding in. That feature of just enhancing the commute, having that sense of a new civic place, a moment of decompression, certainly seems to be one that has been enjoyed by commuters.'

The taste test

Blueprint writer Thomas Wensing lives and works in New York. He is now a regular user of the Fulton Center as it's the nearest station to his office, and he's glad of it.

After a delay of some seven years, the Grimshaw-designed Fulton Center finally opened last month in Downtown Manhattan. At twice the projected cost, coming in at $1.4bn, New York City at last has a subway station that befits its status and allows it to move away from the trauma caused by 9/11. The building consists of a square steel and glass prism that takes its visual cues from New York's modernist landmarks such as the Seagram Building and, especially, Max Abramovitz' Avery Fisher Hall at the Lincoln Center.

Sky Reflector-Net is lined with nearly 1,000 polished aluminium shields to bounce light around the space
Sky Reflector-Net is lined with nearly 1,000 polished aluminium shields to bounce light around the space

Set on top of the box is a truncated steel cone, this time referencing Le Corbusier, of course. It draws light deep into the building, almost up to the platform level. The landmarked Corbin Building, a delightful proto-skyscraper initially destined for demolition, has been meticulously restored and bookends the main building on the south side. A restaurant concourse and retail space is set around the V-shaped, columned main atrium, but the main achievement has been the untangling of nine subway lines deeper below.

Grimshaw’s London Bridge station will feature a new concourse, bigger than Wembley football pitch
Grimshaw's London Bridge station will feature a new concourse, bigger than Wembley football pitch

The lines were originally developed by three private subway companies, and their rivalries had resulted in a bowl of spaghetti that made navigating the station a labyrinthine and frustrating experience. Now, with its brightly lit and spacious corridors, improved connections, attractive, light-blue, glass tile and stainless-steel details, a truly civic and elegantly understated hub lends European flair and pragmatism to an otherwise tired system. Let's hope that the Transit Authority is true to its word that this station sets a new paradigm for others: Penn Station should be next.

Grimshaw’s London Bridge station will feature a new concourse, bigger than Wembley football pitch

Grimshaw transport projects in London.

An enlarged London Bridge station and two for the £1bn Northern Line extension are on track.

In London meanwhile, the redevelopment of London Bridge station by Grimshaw is well underway, while the practice is also drawing up designs for two new stations on the proposed £1bn extension to the Underground's Northern Line to Battersea. No images have been released yet for that project, which is set for completion in 2020.

Grimshaw’s London Bridge station will feature a new concourse, bigger than Wembley football pitch

The new London Bridge station, described as the lynchpin of the Thameslink programme, will provide additional space for around two-thirds more passengers as well as a new concourse at street level, bigger in size than the pitch at Wembley. The six tracks currently going through the station will increase to nine, connecting travellers between the city's north and south. The new concourse beneath the trains will be filled with natural light filtering through the rippling, reflective canopies over the platforms. An upper-level terminus concourse, provided as part of The Shard development, will be linked to the main, street-level concourse via a dramatic, wedge-shaped, triple-height space and a new public square. The project is due to complete in 2018.








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