An elevated laminated glass aquarium envelopes the ruins offering transparency, insulation, silence and preservation. This biogarden is a dynamic buffer-zone, open for water ballet or a swim through crenellations like ruins in a fishtank.

Drawing back the acoustic panels in the auditorium reveals dream-like refracted views of the NY skyline filtered through submerged ruins of the original building.

The flytower serves also the amphitheater on the south, flanked either side by glazed corridors. Studios with apartments atop open into this arcade allowing artists to hawk their wares. The gallery terminates at the highest point of the landscape, crowned by the community black box theater. A geothermal loop naturally heats/ cools and conditions using water from the Hudson River.

This elevated preservation zone, self-supporting and all time-capsule-like will remain long after the base erodes. Where aquarium slices through stonework, calcium carbonate of Portland-Pozzolana waterproof mortar echoes the shells of marine life it mimics. Frozen in time, waterborne ruins will remain suspended dreamlike above as the unprotected base erodes: a hydrologist's wet dream. About: An open international ideas competition entry to design a Universal Arts Center at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island, New York for AIA NY, 2006.