One of six teams selected from a field of several hundred internationally, our vision for the rooftop plaza at 55 Water Street was to demonstrate the integral relationships between nature and culture while creating a different kind of social space within the bustling life of New York City. Demonstrating the unique character of this place, the design dramatizes various climatic forces and human senses - light (sun), air (wind), sound (noise), smell (pollutants), and touch (temperature and texture), while creating a quiet and restful place of destination in lower Manhattan that recalls the natural and cultural history of the island.