Tunnel Vision: Subterranean Park to Stay Sunny with Fiber-Optic Skylights [Slide Show]
The proposed "Lowline" in New York City would transform an abandoned belowground trolley depot into a recreational public space complete with lush flora
![Tunnel Vision: Subterranean Park to Stay Sunny with Fiber-Optic Skylights [Slide Show]](https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/3C5E909B-1119-4918-8BC829AE59A7B5EA.jpg?w=590&h=393)
Tunnel Vision: Subterranean Park to Stay Sunny with Fiber-Optic Skylights [Slide Show]
- LOWLINE TODAY: Lowline organizers are pitching the park as a space covering more than 5,500 square meters with a five-meter-high ceiling. The park, which would feature art exhibits and food vendors alongside the subterraneous photosynthesis, would inhabit the former Williamsburg Trolley Terminal, which opened in 1903 as a depot for streetcars ferrying passengers between Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood and Manhattan's Lower East Side... Courtesy of Delancey Undgerground
- REMOTE SKYLIGHT: The remote skylight to be installed in the actual Lowline space would use a reflective, parabolic solar collection dish outdoors to gather and concentrate sunlight. Fiber-optic cable would transmit captured solar radiation to the park; a series of domelike fixtures will use lenses and reflectors to distribute the light throughout the Lowline... Courtesy of Delancey Undgerground
- REFLECTOR SHIELDS: The Lowline exhibit collects sunlight on the roof and channels the rays directly through a circular array of six tubes (each about 53 centimeters in diameter) into the building. The tubes, each of which contains an arrangement of mirrors and lenses, send sunlight down to three hexagonal reflector shields hanging from the center of the circle... Courtesy of Scientific American/Larry Greenemeier
- ALUMINUM CANOPY: The exhibit—on display September 15–27—features a skylight that delivers the sun's energy from an outdoor solar collector to an indoor canopy for distribution. Living below the aluminum canopy is an impressive array of flora specially chosen for its ability to thrive in low light... Courtesy of Scientific American/Larry Greenemeier
