HALO NYC

A Kinetic Monument for Public Use and Enjoyment.

Year: 2016

Location: New York, NY, USA

Project Team: AE Superlab | ARUP | Brooklyn Capital Partners

 

AE Superlab was commissioned to develop a bold and unique design concept in response to the Empire Station RFP issued jointly by the State of New York and it’s partners. This proposal offers to build The Halo: an extremely transparent, lightweight and iconic structure that will serve as a new beacon and landmark along the city’s skylight, celebrating and demarking the location of the station below at street level, bringing enjoyment to millions of visitors, and generating potentially over $1 billion of value for the public sector through private-sector ticket sales.

The Halo will be an invigorating and exciting addition to the New York skyline. It’s diaphanous, gauzy superstructure, will stand at almost 1200 feet (360m) of height and 460 feet (140m) of diameter and will be made of 17,000 tons of high quality steel. It will be equipped with 11 parallel tower rides each tuned to a different degree of intensity to match the excitement level of a wide range of riders from thrill-seekers to sight-seers. 
It will be a uniquely thrilling journey regardless of the choice. Riders can take in vistas at almost three times the height of the London eye, or free fall more than twice as far as the next tallest ride of its kind. New York’s tower ride will be the biggest and fastest in the world.

It will also serve as the cities largest and most visible interactive info display, programmed to display an ever changing array of city-relevant information driven by the data-sets made available through NYC’s open data initiatives as well as direct interaction with New Yorkers via mobile and web apps and real-time information driven by such events as environmental data and sports results from the games taking place in MSG Arena directly below.

The Halo is a project that is uniquely suited to and tailored for its location in midtown Manhattan. The importance of it’s role as the revenue engine for the renovation and upkeep of the beleaguered Penn station is matched by the impact it will have on the city’s skyline as a smart and optimistic 21st century beacon of aspirational architecture. An entirely thrilling way to experience and interact with New York City.


An Interactive Beacon For The City.

 

The Halo will serve as the cities largest and most visible interactive info display. It’s surface will display a wide range of information via any combination of its multi-colored rings (each representing one of New York City’s five boroughs) and it’s transparent LED pixel screen “skin”.
The “Info Themes” will change frequently and viewers will be able to interact with the display via web and mobile applications. Examples of the interactive nature of the displays include:

  • Live polling on city relevant issues. “Are you satisfied with access to public transportation in your neighborhood?)

  • Environmental advisories. Eg. coastal water quality after heavy rainfall.

  • Live feedback from sporting events at MSG. Eg. transforming the entire structure into a city-sized decibel meter that silently glows brighter along with the loudness of the cheering fans inside the arena below.

  • Visualizing relevant and interesting data culled from the cities vast supply of information available via the NYC Open Data program.