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Parks and Rides: A Horizontal Skyscraper Ronkonkoma, NY

Roger Sherman, Roger Sherman Architecture + Urban Design (RSAUD)

EDITOR'S DESIGN CHOICE

Parks and Rides provides a super-scaled, bubble-wrapped, all-season destination, with commuter parking and recreation interwoven under one roof. The Ronkonkoma site is large enough to accommodate a critical mass of program, transforming the role of the train station from largely infrastructural and transportation-oriented into a leisure and business destination, combining recreation, event, cultural, and meeting venues. Image courtesy of Roger Sherman Architecture + Urban Design

Manhattan transfer diagram. Parks and Rides inserts a slice of Manhattan’s energy, density, and intensity into eastern Long Island at the intersection of its planes, trains, and automobiles. Image courtesy of Roger Sherman Architecture + Urban Design

Weekly use diagram. Currently, the Ronkonkoma lot is jammed with absent commuters’ cars on weekdays; at night and on weekends, the lot is empty. Instead of arriving in the evening to a sea of emptying spaces, what if you could pick up dinner on your way to the car, hit the driving range, meet a friend for a drink, catch a movie, or pick up the kids from soccer practice—all while cutting your real commute home in half? Image courtesy of Roger Sherman Architecture + Urban Design

With its mix of programs, Parks and Rides extends the stay of commuters at the station site, while also offering attractions for leisure visitors and residents from the surrounding area. Image courtesy of Roger Sherman Architecture + Urban Design

Parks and Rides is half-garage, half-Manhattan. But instead of mimicking the city—with storefronts at street level, housing above, and parking below—Parks and Rides is composed of alternating “wafers” of parking and tenants linked by ramps and escalators. Image courtesy of Roger Sherman Architecture + Urban Design

View down New Park Avenue, which links a pair of monumental open spaces, one a “park” and one for “rides.” Image courtesy of Roger Sherman Architecture + Urban Design

View of elevated Long Island Rail Road platform. The “rides” portion of the scheme features a covered outdoor space sheltering the train platform and airport shuttle stop with a parking structure, recalling the vaulted ceiling of the original Penn Station. Image courtesy of Roger Sherman Architecture + Urban Design

Rooftop view, with “rides” at left and “parks” at right. Image courtesy of Roger Sherman Architecture + Urban Design

View of future air terminal annex. Sports fields at the south edge of the project could be retrofitted into an air terminal annex, allowing Parks and Rides to become a robust, all-in-one multi-modal transit hub. Image courtesy of Roger Sherman Architecture + Urban Design

Empire State Building at rest. Only upon landing or take-off from Mac Arthur airport does the hidden identity of the project reveal itself, recalling the shape of the Empire State Building on its side—fitting for Long Island. Image courtesy of Roger Sherman Architecture + Urban Design

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A 30-acre surface parking lot abuts a busy regional commuter rail station, and is also adjacent to a regional airport. What other uses and markets can this land support, in addition to LOTS of parking?

Roger Sherman Architecture + Urban Design’s super-scaled, family-focused, all-season recreational park is designed to insert a slice of center-city energy, density, and intensity into exburban Suffolk County at the intersection of its planes (MacArthur/Islip Airport), trains (Long Island Rail Road), and automobiles (the Long Island Expressway).

The scheme proposes a pair of gigantic open spaces, one a “park” and one for “rides.” The “rides” portion of the scheme features a covered outdoor space sheltering the train platform and airport shuttle stop with a parking structure. Its bubble-wrapped counterpart – the “park” – contains soccer fields, a hockey rink, mini-golf and a driving range, a go-cart track, and a cricket field stadium with seating for 9,000 spectators.

More about Parks and Rides

Find out more about the Design Proposal.

Read a Q&A with Roger Sherman of RSAUD.

Watch a video of Roger Sherman unveiling the design.

Read a webpaper from the future imagining what Parks and Rides means to the community.

More about ParkingPLUS

Find out about the potential economic benefits of the ParkingPLUS designs.

Read about how to finance parking garages, and why it pays to build them in downtown and train station areas.

Learn more about the ParkingPLUS design challenge.