Reimagining the DL&W Corridor: Ideen für einen urbanen Grünkorridor in Buffalo (US)

Buffalo is a city divided by strands of impenetrable road and rail infrastructure running east-west and north-south that create a sense of separation between adjacent neighborhoods and isolate them from an inspiring waterfront context. The Loop Line suggests that a pre-existing infrastructural barrier can act as a linear urban organizer, catalyzing new relationships between bifurcated precincts and creating opportunities for visitors to make new connections to the city’s rich tapestry of culture, history, and nature.
The territories traversed by the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western corridor have a storied ecological history whose evolution is closely tied to the urban development of Buffalo, and the design of this public park is calibrated to reveal and showcase this truly unique heritage. The Loop Line is designed as a year-round, multi-use recreational circuit where visitors can experience unparalleled views of downtown and the Buffalo river against the backdrop of the city’s heroic 20th century infrastructure. The DL&W rail line’s topography is revived and expanded upon, increasing the park’s capacity as act as a nexus for recreation, leisure, the arts, and community engagement. Continuous connection along the length of the DL&W ensures its viability as a trail for bikers, walkers, and runners. The Loop Line is designed to be “seasonably inverted” to capitalize on the natural splendor Buffalo’s sometimes-brutal winters. By introducing a set of engaging, community-based activities, The Loop Line leverages the allure of its layered histories to create a new cultural destination for special events and daily engagement throughout the year. The park is punctuated by intermittent iconic architectural waypoints that offer visitor amenities, immersive exhibitions, and organize park services. At the western end, the existing DL&W terminal is re-imagined as the physical and symbolic terminus of the new public park that links it back to downtown proper.
At an urban scale, our proposal suggests that the vitality and utility of the new elevated rail park is inextricably linked to an idea of claiming a continuous circuit of public space along the Buffalo River, establishing an ecological cul-de-sac to the Niagara Greenway that bends back to reconnect to downtown - the Loop Line. ID