Greenwalls

Nov,21st 2024

While working in NY, walking around, I became interested in the green walls, the walls that contain construction sites. They held windows looking into the future of our city’s development—the “What's to come” sort of advertisements and sneak peek into the demolition and rebuilding of the massive buildings iconic to Manhattan. So I began photographing all of them on the side. While building my Thesis for my master's program, I began researching how we move and interact with the city. Namely, construction sites stuck out to me, as we tend to be surrounded by them at all times. They should stick out like a sore thumb in the gray landscape of Manhattan, but they don't… Have we been desensitized to them? I think not, I believe they're thoroughly thought out from the color to placement and again the windows.

I guess I should define what I’m talking about. These green walls are called ‘Hoarding’ in relation to construction they create a perimeter around a construction site using multiple 8’x4’ plywood sheets stood up they act as a wall. Generally held in place with metal or concrete scaffolding, they come with multiple requirements by law. The Two most interesting to me and pertinent to the project are found within Local Law 47 of 2013, the first of which is found in section 3307.6.4 on Construction of sidewalk sheds which states, “Sidewalk sheds erected on or after July 1, 2013, shall be painted the color of hunter green.” Later in the same legislature, section 3307.7.1 on Viewing panels it states, “Viewing panels shall be provided in solid fences erected on or after July 1, 2013, at a rate of one for every 25 linear feet (7.6 m) per frontage, with a minimum of one per frontage. Viewing panels shall be 12 x 12 inches (305 x 305 mm) in size and shall be blocked with plexiglass or an equivalent nonfrangible material.”

I want to go through this, starting with the green color, “Hunter Green” made by Benjamin Moore, it is created by mixing blue and yellow with a larger portion of blue to create dark earthy tones with slight yellow undertones. From physically seeing them all the same color while walking through the city I went to research why this might be, my initial thought was it was some kind of flame retardant paint that just happened to be that is standard a dark green color, however what I found seemed to be more interesting. Looking at other cities, I found the majority of the hoarding being either green, blue, or yellow is very rare cases. I was familiar with green but not blue and yellow, and thought about it well, those two colors come to make green, so there has to be something with either these two colors or the green itself that makes us lean towards it. And there is, specifically, in psychology and the way our eyes see the color. Green is generally referred to as the most balanced color, its heavy association with nature also lends it leave feelings of harmony serenity, good health, and growth. It was also found people generally like the color and rate it as their second favorite color, while the number one favored color is blue followed by green, followed by none other than yellow. It all is starting to make sense, so we know these colors are heavily favored by the masses. Beyond that, there is more interesting research on how our eyes perceive the color green and what it can make us do, or not do. While researching, I stumbled across an article about Disney and its backend infrastructure that allows its parks to run seamlessly. Things like water pipes, HVACs, lighting, and fences all will be painted with a coat of green paint called, “Go Away Green”. However, in all the talk about green, there has been one bit of research that has been a thorn in my side, and it is that our eyes can see more shades of green than any other color. It is thought that this is coming from our ancestors evolving to hunt in foliage and needing to differentiate colors more precisely. However, if this is true would it not make it so that green sticks out to us… or maybe we are devolving right now from the forest that was overtaken by the cityscape that is NYC?

About the peepholes or Windows in the hoarding, they are required by law to be present every 25’. Being 12”x12” in size. Standardized. A consolation to the public, an advertisement for the freshest thing on the block. If the green walls push us away and make us forget, the windows call us to look at them.