When Mary Lennox in Burnett’s The Secret Garden befriended the garden to regain her calm and strength, she let the abandoned yard became an instrument for healing and contemplation. In both the 18th and 19th century art and literary works, gardens resembled a pastoral imaginative, appeared in J.M.W. Turner’s painted scenes to Frederick Olmsted's Central Park analogy. Although the programmatic definition of gardens shifts interchangeably between labyrinths, farmlands, eco-sites, vineyards, amusement parks, outdoor art, among others, its functionality has an unchanged purpose at heart: nature mediated by human.

 

At the intersection of reality and fantasy, modularized hotel rooms and boundless outdoor gardens, one is invited to experience multiple building scales and a juxtaposition of highway infrastructure and architectural elements.

 

In a dense urban setting facing the Hudson River, where rationality of grid organization upholds, spirals of concrete paths loop in the existing infrastructure, and hinged on blocks of high rises on the other side through a connected green belt. Here, tall glass enclosures and public assemblies blur the boundaries of indoor and outdoor, and the diversity of programs lends itself the possibility of self-sufficiency – a city within the city.