14 DAY TRIAL // Let's face it, cities are nothing if not annoyingly crowded in this day and age. In fact, many are basically a chaotic collection of apartment buildings, roads, supermarkets, and all sorts of other pieces of infrastructure. Patches of greenery, on the other hand, are a fairly rare sight.
On the bright side, it looks like a bunch of technology enthusiasts are now hard at work trying to come up with a way to add more trees to existing urban areas. Rather than bringing down buildings to make room for nature, these guys and gals want to move nature to the underground.
Introducing the world's first underground park
Having come to terms with the fact that the chances to squeeze a proper park in the city of New York in the US are pretty much slim to none, a group of private planners decided to go the extra mile and have this urban area become home to the world's first underground park.
The idea is pretty straightforward and nothing short of ingenious. In a nutshell, what the folks behind the Lowline park project want to do is turn an old trolley terminal in the Lower East Side of Manhattan into an urban oasis, complete with trees and grass.
This innovative project was first announced back in 2011. The people behind it have since sorted out several details concerning how best to proceed with this initiative and have even put together a full-scale model to provide a proof of concept.
The underground park will even have sunlight
As surprising as this may sound, word has it that this underground park in New York, US, will even have sunlight. Thus, the idea is to use reflective parabolas and fiber-optic cables to have sunlight above ground channeled all the way to the former trolley terminal.
The greenheads working on this project expect that this sunlight will be more than enough to allow trees, grass and even flowers to thrive in the underground. What's more, the sunlight will make it look like the park is no different to any other patch of greenery in New York.
“The Lowline aims to build a new kind of public space – one that highlights the historic elements of a former trolley terminal while introducing cutting-edge solar technology and design, enabling plants and trees to grow underground,” say the folks behind this initiative.
So, when will New York cut the ribbon on this park?
On the downside, it appears that it will be at least 5 years until crews are finally given the green light to begin work on the world's first underground park. This is because some details are yet to be sorted out. Needless to say, money is also an issue. Still, the good news is that, apparently, the park will sooner or later be built.
“We envision not merely a new public space, but an innovative display of how technology can transform our cities in the 21st century. And along the way, we intend to draw the community into the design process itself, empowering a new generation of Lower East Siders to help build a new bright spot in our dense urban environment,” say the project's coordinators.
Check out the video below to learn more about this project and get a better idea of what the world's first underground park will look like.
