Discover This project features three associated projects.

In 1999, PLANT was asked to develop a conceptual master plan for a 20,000-acre area across the Hudson River from Manhattan known as the Hackensack Meadows. The project consists of an overall strategy for the long-term development of this complex area, as well as a series of demonstration projects whose aim is to change peoples’ perception of the place.

You are here.

The Hackensack Meadowlands is a complex area of open space, highways, rail lines, landfills, mosquito ditches, towns, inter-tidal marshland and wildlife just across the Hudson River from Manhattan. It is a very easy place to get over, but notoriously hard to get into. We were asked to develop a new vision and master plan for this neglected, defaced, and eroded area. There is a long history of battles against marshland infill, development and garbage dumping, attempted preservation and restoration.
Our work here has been about trying to formulate an idea of what this whole place is about. The New Jersey Meadows are a really big place. For us, its overlapping histories – human, ecological, geological – are equally important for generating, interpreting, and enhancing the experience of visitors. It is an urban wilderness.

Our strategy involved a comprehensive reconsideration of the area – one which proposes the complexity be contained within a singularity: We defined the place by its natural and imposed (contemporary industrial) geology – we defined it as a geological basin formed by water. This shaped our political and economic strategy which proposes the whole area become a park – a single cultural idea – which would contain the wildlife alongside the intense man-made texture. Sustainable development is planned within the park, but only as it can reinforce the spatial definition of the place and maintain the health of the place.

Belleville Turnpike Boardwalk
Urban wilderness duck blind
Four Corners/Concrete beach
Garbage hill identification
The river of rooms

The concept plan structures four kinds of projects – ones which define boundaries – with look outs from the edges of the basin, and train blinkers which demarcate and accentuate the moment of entering and exiting of the basin; backbone routes/linkages and paths, which give access TO the park rather than just through it – from major roads and trains, and use utility corridors and abandoned rail lines to give access to canoe launches and beach heads; monuments which capitalize on all the possible opportunities for high panoramic views – really emphasizing the sky in contrast to Manhattan – by giving access to the top of snake hill (real geology) and the garbage hills (new geology), and finally the enhancement of intimate and characteristically Meadows places like the urban wilderness duckblind – a place where every conceivable form of infrastructure co-habitates with a duck population.

We have found opportunities which are afforded because of, not despite the altered landscape: an outrageous number of transportation and utility corridors carve up the space haphazardly yet provide infinite opportunities for access; the plethora and variety of bridges on the Hackensack River are a constant interruption, yet on a very large scale act like thresholds into the rooms of the river and make it more comprehensible; mosquito ditches which have forever altered the character and ecological diversity of the wetlands in places point to fabulous intimate views to far off places like the Empire State Building; the capped garbage hills have filled the marshland, and dirtied the water, but now offer some of the most significant high views, in their differential settlement create entirely new emergent ecologies on their tops, and, finally, are potent monuments to our waste culture.

The ESB viewing bench
Tidal fret boardwalk
The Meadows Parkway oops lanes
Phragmite path typologies
Sawmill Creek glowing buoys
Sinking/Rising measuring
Snake Hill
Railway blinkers
Schuyler belvedere
Walden Beach access
Concept model – current condition
Concept model – the future

  1. A Conversation of Views
  2. Admiral Road Garden
  3. Airdrie Road Garden
  4. Airdrie Road Residence
  5. Albany Avenue Residence
  6. Alcina Garden
  7. Alexandra Park
  8. Aporia Records
  9. Asphalt Poetry
  10. – Poem
  11. Baby Point Gardens
  12. Beach Garden
  13. Beach Village BIA Master Plan
  14. Beaty Residence
  15. Bennington Heights Garden
  16. Berkeley Street Residence
  17. Bin-Scarth Garden
  18. Blink and you miss it.
  19. – Poem
  20. Block 22 Landscape
  21. Bloor St. Apartment
  22. Blue Note
  23. Booth Avenue Residence
  24. Boustrophedon Garden
  25. Braemore Gardens Residence
  26. Browning Avenue Residence
  27. Brunswick Avenue Residence
  28. Camp Arowhon Offices
  29. Canadian Firefighters Memorial
  30. Channelled Buried Moved Lost
  31. Chocolate Loft
  32. City Instrument
  33. Clarendon Garden
  34. Conversation Piece
  35. Cortleigh Boulevard Garden
  36. Creemore Farm
  37. Danforth Mosaic BIA Master Plan
  38. Dickson Park Garden
  39. Dilworth Residence
  40. Don Landing Revitalization
  41. Dublin Grounds of Remembrance
  42. Duncanwoods Townhouses
  43. Dundas Roncesvalles Peace Garden
  44. Dupont-by-the-Castle BIA
  45. East Point Bird Sanctuary
  46. Eglinton Ave Forecourt
  47. Eglinton Park Master Plan
  48. Elizabeth Fry Society
  49. Ellsworth Residence
  50. Face to Face | Tête à Tête
  51. First Avenue Garden
  52. First Avenue Residence
  53. Flyover Canada
  54. Foote’s Pond Wood
  55. Forest Hill Village Streetscape
  56. Gaze, Glimpse, Glance
  57. Global Affairs Monument
  58. Goldring Landscape, University of Toronto
  59. Gormley Garden
  60. Governor's Bridge Lookout
  61. Greener P
  62. Greer Road Garden
  63. Greer Road Residence
  64. Guelph Bridge
  65. Head in the Clouds
  66. Helena Ave Residence 4
  67. Jackman Institute for Childhood Studies
  68. Junction Craft Brewery
  69. Kelpies Competition
  70. Kew Gardens Streetscape
  71. King's Landing Apartment
  72. Kipling & Islington Developments
  73. Lakeport Beach Neighbourhood
  74. Le jardin du repos
  75. Lenticular Curtain
  76. Leslie Slip Lookout Park
  77. Liberty Village Parkettes
  78. Liza’s Garden
  79. Lynwood Garden
  80. Macroscape
  81. Makwa Waakaa'igan
  82. Markham Garden One
  83. Markham Street Residence Two
  84. Massey College Landscape Restoration
  85. Midtown Yonge Streetscape
  86. Mount Dennis Parkettes
  87. Mulock Park
  88. Nathan Phillips Square
  89. – Streetscape
  90. – Peace Garden
  91. – Podium Roof Garden
  92. Noel Garden
  93. Octane Medical Campus
  94. Orchard View Garden
  95. Osgoode Atkinson Green Competition
  96. Owl Cottage
  97. Paperstone Scissors
  98. Pendrith Residence
  99. Peripheral Sitings
  100. Pottery Road Crossing
  101. rare
  102. Ravine Forecourt
  103. Ribbon of the Lower Don
  104. Riverside BIA Master Plan
  105. Roxborough Garden One
  106. Roxborough Garden Two
  107. Schulich School of Business
  108. Sheridan College
  109. – Trafalgar Campus Master Plan
  110. Spadina Quay Wetland
  111. St. Anne's Road Garden
  112. St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts
  113. Stratford Market Square Competition
  114. Stratford Patterson Theatre Competition
  115. Superkids Dental
  116. Superlegible
  117. Sweet Farm
  118. Sweet Farm Pond House
  119. Swift Medical Offices
  120. The Meadows Reconsidered
  121. The Red Sash
  122. Thick & Thin
  123. Thistletown II Townhouses
  124. Tipping Point
  125. TMU Centre for Urban Innovation
  126. TMU Science Building
  127. Tranby Garden
  128. Tree House Residence
  129. UBC Okanagan – The Commons
  130. UHN Tunnels
  131. University of Toronto Mississauga Welcome Centre
  132. Venice Biennale 2012
  133. Vermont Square Park
  134. Vernon Avenue Garden
  135. Walk the Walk
  136. Walmer Road Residence
  137. Welland Canal Fallen Workers Memorial
  138. Wellesley Cottages Garden
  139. Wells Street Residence
  140. Westminster Residence
  141. Weston Village BIA Masterplan
  142. With Words as Their Actions
  143. Woodlawn Avenue Residence
  144. Woven Stories
  145. Wynford Drive Residences
  146. York Park
  147. Yorkwoods Townhouses