The remit for this graduation project derives from a competition for a ferry station on Wall Street in Manhattan, NEW YORK. The station lies along the existing route linking La Guardia airfield, Midtown, Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. It has three groups of users: commuters, tourists and inhabitants of Lower Manhattan.

The design exploits the movement of the tides to hitch the moments of arrival and departure to an awareness of time. Our building consists of two parallel parts, one of which is fixed and the other floating. The tidal movement causes a change in spatiality between the building parts that in turn produces a permanent change of route and image for the traveller.

Programmewise the building divides into four decks, each with its own use form. The boarding deck receives all arriving and departing passengers. On the service deck are facilities for commuters including a supermarket, a post office and a snack bar. Even commuters who are always there at the same time every day will encounter a different space on each occasion thanks to the movement of the tides. The information deck is reserved for tourists on their way to or from the airport. There they can get the information they need or check in for the flight. Since travel has made the change from adventure to routine the traveller has no further need to conquer the space but can consume it instead. The space the traveller enters is no longer individual, but envelops entire flows of travellers. At high tide the opaque enclosure becomes a media screen that accompanies the route the travellers take. At low tide a view opens up of the city and the river. The recreation deck is targeted at the inhabitants of Manhattan. There is a large beach, an outdoor swimming pool, a bar, a restaurant and an open-air movie theatre. This deck exploits the surrealistic qualities of the site: an open space that either makes tangible the emptiness of the river or offers the possibility of making social contact with others, depending on one's mood. The link between the decks varies with the tide. The changing space embraces the lightning-speed of the media, the relative speed of travel and the endless cycle of the toing and froing of the tides.

Place of education: TU Delft
Specialization: architectuur/architecture
Tutors: Bernard Leupen, Henk Mihl & Deborah Hauptmann