Concepts of Landscape And The Reclamation of An Urban Artifact Part 2 Project 2003 Anne Dutton University of Maryland | USA Concepts of Landscape and the Reclamation of an Urban Artifact;The Highline, West Chelsea, New York, NYThe Highline is an elevated railroad viaduct stretching one-and-a-half miles across the Chelsea district of west-side Manhattan. This thesis examines the adaptive reuse of the viaduct as a viable public space. The solution entails a systematic response addressing three scales of architectural experience: the urban district, the urban space, and the building within the city. A master plan responds to evolving development pressures while the promenade design and component entry system discuss ideas of narrative and place.The thesis reveals the role of an urban artifact as an active and transforming element of the urban environment. Thus, a larger framework is maintained through a continual dialogue with its component parts. This student met brilliantly an extremely difficult challenge: bringing new life to New York’s historic but abandoned High Line, an elevated rail spur traversing residential, commercial and industrial blocks in Chelsea, on the west side of Manhattan. She developed a dual strategy: providing an accessible, diversified landscape atop the High Line for each of the distinct neighborhoods through which it passes; and creating pavilions at strategic points facilitating direct access to the High Line from streets below. Containing space for shops and community functions, pavilions vary depending on location. Yet there is a unifying consistency of architectural form and language, enhanced by visual transparency that intentionally reveals and expresses standardized elements of structure and enclosure.