Edge, the Western Hemisphere’s highest outdoor sky deck conceived by Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group as part of the Hudson Yards development, offers unparalleled 360-degree views of the iconic New York City skyline. The experience starts before visitors reach the top. The traditional queuing line has been reimagined by the LAB at Rockwell Group as Journey to Edge, an immersive experience whose escalating thrills educate visitors on the engineering feat of constructing a neighborhood atop an active railyard. Also essential to address was Hudson Yards’ implementation of environmentally sustainable practices as the model of a future city. Above all else, our solution needed to differentiate Edge as an absolutely unrivaled experience. Journey to Edge is an activation of space that prioritizes what we call ‘magical realism’ through implementation of highly intentional and symbiotic architectural and digital content design and technology. This Journey consists of five zones, beginning in what would typically be a security queue, called “Manhattan’s Last Frontier.” Here, visitors learn of the neighborhood’s history as a “hole” in Manhattan and Hudson Yards’s role in its transformation, not unlike many of NYC’s notable landmarks and neighborhoods. The video content sets the storytelling groundwork for what visitors can expect throughout the experience. One of our largest challenges was designing a self-supporting, 80-foot wall-to-wall satellite map-exact perforated metal ceiling of Manhattan, backlit with fully-programmable lighting. This 30-week ceiling map design effort across five specialized design collaborators yielded a mesmerizing lighting show above visitors’ heads that syncs with LED wall content. Next in the experience, visitors learn about “The Platform” which makes Hudson Yards possible: a 10-acre platform of steel and concrete held aloft by caissons drilled deep into the ground under the first phase. The clever use of reflective material surfaces vertically and horizontally multiplies the custom-designed caisson structures, creating an immersive ‘caisson forest’ complete with spatialized sound and media. Turning the corner, visitors pass through a floor-to-ceiling digital tunnel that simulates the trusses being built and the trains rushing by. “The Living Lab for Future Cities” is a zone that educates visitors on the progressive sustainability and engineering efforts of the neighborhood through ‘life-sized’, multi-sensory physical exhibit objects and projection mapping. As anticipation builds and visitors await their turn to ride the elevator up, they queue in a zone that features a wraparound ‘digital mosaic’ that shares five vignettes illustrating how the neighborhood is a place for “Amazing Gathering.” The final immersive experience of this journey is within the elevator ride itself, which is lined with floor-to-ceiling screens. As the elevator ascends, the digital walls “fall away” to reveal a sketch of the NYC skyline that is painted in and becomes photoreal. Landing safely in the digital clouds, the elevator doors open to the 100-story high views of New York. After experiencing the breathtaking 360-views of Edge, the elevator ride down simulates a sense of flying through a canyon of skyscrapers, landing safely within Hudson Yards to continue your exploration of the neighborhood.