Queensway Connection Competition, Elevating the Public Realm: The park into the street. New York City / U.S.A.

The project aims to connect the Queensway park directly to the  street, projecting the visitor directly into the park through the remodelation the of Ozone Park station .

The Ozone station is modified making a stairs and ramps, long 64 each one, which from the street level lead you directly to the level of the park. There are 3 different types of ramps, each one with different functions:green, yellow and red ramps.

The green ramps are those colonized by vegetation, they accompany the traveler to the Queensway park, to a different place in the city, to a quiet place for reflection, a place with a pace  different from the frenetic pace of the street, a place where the events are more slower. With its colors and its textures,  the vegetation allows a quiet and fluent access, it accompanies and embraces the traveler, it enhances the idea of closeness to a green space.

There are 2 types of green ramps: the central ones (1.5 m wide) composed by Ophiopogon japonicus that covers the ground and rows of Ficus benjamina, and the side ones (1 m wide), composed by a lower bearing vegetation of Grasses like Festuca glauca, Panicum selvaticum , Eragrostis spectabilis, Calamagrostis brachytricha.

The yellow ramps (wide 1.5 m) are exclusively for the bicycle use, for a quick rise, each one in a different sense.

The red ramps (wide 2.5 m) are only for pedestrians, and for a more leisurely ascent, they are for a different rise too.

Between these ramps there are stairs (wide 4.5 m) that offer other access, a more direct ascent.

The yellow and red ramps continue to the level of the park as stripes of outdoor activity, they cross each other like train rails when they reach a station. This idea is related to the past of the place, where there were train rails next to each other; today there are stripes of activity of entrance and exit of the park.

At the park level two new spaces open themselves to the visitors. The first one is a square, an open space of 60 m2, that can allow outdoor gatherings, markets, and usual events that might have a routine that actively implicates all the neighborhood. After the square there is a large green area full of trees that marks the arrival of another space, the boulevard. In this space the stripes of activity resume their importance, the  yellow stripes, formerly on the side are now centrals, while the side ones are reds. All this space is developed with trees and shrubs that allow a linear development of the Queensway park. The vegetation in this last section consists of specimens of Quercus rubra, Prunus virgiana, Cercis canadensis and Betula populiflora, and it provides a colorful landscape.

At the level of the sidewalk, we improve it up to 4 meters in the 2 sides of the station, giving the opportunity to enjoy more the same sidewalk and to  plant a  rows of trees of Liquidambar styraciflua that mark the new landscape of Ozone Park station.

Bruna Campos.Salvatore Barbaro