Lowline Lab demonstrates viability of an underground New York park
A new mock-up of the Lowline, the underground park planned for New York City, demonstrates how its designers will bring sunlight and plant life below the streets of Manhattan's Lower East Side (+ slideshow).
![Lowline Lab underground park on Essex Street in Manhatten](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/10/LowLine-Lab_Essex-Street-Market_New-York-City_dezeen_936_3.jpg)
Called the Lowline Lab, the 5,000-square-foot (464 square metres) space reveals the solar collection and distribution technology the organisers plan to use to bring sunlight down to the three-block-long former trolley terminal.
It is located in the Essex Street Market – a historic food and vendor hall.
![Lowline Lab underground park on Essex Street in Manhatten](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/10/LowLine-Lab_Essex-Street-Market_New-York-City_dezeen_936_13.jpg)
The Lowline could become the world's first underground park, set in a one-acre tunnel under Delancey Street in the quickly developing Lower East Side. The terminal opened in 1908 and was abandoned in 1948 when trolley service ended.
![Lowline Lab underground park on Essex Street in Manhatten](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/10/LowLine-Lab_Essex-Street-Market_New-York-City_dezeen_936_14.jpg)
The concept for the underground park relies on "remote skylight" technology, which the park's backers are developing with a Korean company called Sunportal.
Prototypes of the technology are on display in the lab, along with plantings that will test the viability of growing vegetation below ground.
![Lowline Lab underground park on Essex Street in Manhatten](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/10/LowLine-Lab_Essex-Street-Market_New-York-City_dezeen_936_1.jpg)
"The Lowline Lab offers a glimpse into a pioneering use of solar technology, which may help us fundamentally rethink the ways in which we can reclaim abandoned urban spaces", Lowline co-founder and executive director Dan Barasch told Dezeen. "It is also home to cutting-edge landscape design research – essentially ushering in a new way to study subterranean gardening."
"It will help us discover the ways in which a year-round, four-season public space can be used by city dwellers everywhere," Barasch added.
![Lowline Lab underground park on Essex Street in Manhatten](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/10/LowLine-Lab_Essex-Street-Market_New-York-City_dezeen_936_6.jpg)
The Lowline organisers also hope the lab will help make the underground park a reality by convincing the public and elected officials that the unconventional idea is viable.
![Lowline Lab underground park on Essex Street in Manhatten](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/10/LowLine-Lab_Essex-Street-Market_New-York-City_dezeen_936_11.jpg)
"We are now actively engaging with both the MTA and senior city officials in the DeBlasio administration to outline a specific process for site transfer. The opening of the Lowline Lab is a critical milestone, showing the tremendous technical and scientific breakthroughs that will make the Lowline feasible," he said.
![Lowline Lab underground park on Essex Street in Manhatten](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/10/LowLine-Lab_Essex-Street-Market_New-York-City_dezeen_936_4.jpg)
The Lowline is named after the High Line, New York's popular elevated park on a disused railway line.
Earlier this year the project organisers launched a successful crowdfunded campaign through Kickstarter, which raised nearly $225,000 (£145,711) towards making the park a reality.
![Lowline Lab underground park on Essex Street in Manhatten](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/10/LowLine-Lab_Essex-Street-Market_New-York-City_dezeen_936_5.jpg)
New York's Lower East Side neighbourhood has been experiencing a rapid transformation in recent years. A large mixed-use development called Essex Crossing, masterplanned by SHoP Architects, will be built at the proposed entrance of the Lowline.