In 1992, the New York City Economic Development Corporation, in conjunction with the city’s Department of Transportation, opened a two-stage limited competition to design a new Whitehall Ferry Terminal at the southern tip of Manhattan. Besides serving as the Manhattan landing for the Staten Island Ferry – an essential part of the city’s public transportation network, as well as a major tourist attraction – the terminal is also a key intermodal hub linking subways and buses.

The RVA entry, inspired by the silhouette of a gull taking flight, was a conscious acknowledgment of both the high volume of traffic through the terminal and its prominent waterfront site. An asymmetrical cantilevered light steel structure, it is essentially a huge single roof providing shelter along a linear axis to arriving and departing ferries on the water side and to embarking and disembarking passengers on land. The structure rests on a single point from which the two sheltering “wings” soar.

The straightforward allusion to the building’s location embedded in its form – New York Harbor is home to vast populations of seabirds – is also reflected in an adjoining lighthouse, meant to serve as both a sculptural compositional element and a tourist attraction offering an elevated viewing platform. The lighthouse tower is designed with a light conical steel structure that includes two ramps, entwined in a double helix, that provide access to and from the viewing platform at the top. Embedded in the ground at the tower’s base is a huge arc light aimed up through the structure’s hollow center to bounce off a highly polished conical steel mirror. The resulting 360-degree disk of light serves as a symbolic beacon.