Beauty and beastly strength: Concrete made by Fort Miller Group, which precast the giant concrete flowerpot-like structures for Manhattan’s Little Island park on the Hudson River, boasts this traditionally unlikely combination.

The $250-million, 2.4-acre multilevel public outdoor space, which replaces an old Hudson River pier in Manhattan, uses precast concrete components, deep pilings and MEP systems in innovative ways. Says its project executive: "When I started working on the project, we weren't really sure if it could be built."