Intro

“Individuals survive only if their community survives, and the community survives by the concerted effort of all its members.”
Lebbeus Woods

This quote says a lot about the ways our societies where formed. A team is only as strong as its weakest member and this is something that people today seem to have forgotten. The NYCHA projects, built to protect and offer habitation to people with lower incomes, are a city on their own. A city striving on its own, left alone with minimum funding and with no alterations whatsoever since the 50’s. Our goal is to offer a constructive change in terms of better living environment and improved social integration, goals that are not only long termed but also vital for the existence of these households. The basic strategy consists of breaking down and “deteriorating” the existing massive blocks in order to create smaller and more agile communities. Those communities would be re introduced into the rest of the city with a series of outward facing programs that will have an end goal to transform the project’s grounds from a vacant spot to be avoided, into a condensing ground that will bring people from all over the city into it.

Final boards

      

changing through time

 
Here are the added “boxes” depicted as white since they will be built by a different material. They represent the volumetric differentiation through time and not the design in specific.






At these diagrammatic renderings it is shown how the process of displacing can create open space at the building. More “white boxes” can added next to the building as an extension of it, where the removed apartments can be. Even the boxes that represent public use are depicted as white, like a canvas. Each addition or public intervention can have its own architectural language or not. It’s free for people to decide when or how they are going to build it. Here is just a volumetric approach in order to show the potential of creating space.

sketches of the additions and a kitchen

  

diagram

Public interventions

Here is where private should start blend with public. There is a layer of semi – public and another layer for public. The first one is actually “public” for the people who live in the specific tower. This layer can host community centers or the gardens where these people work on. Since there is always the feeling of protecting your “own” area that is why these areas have to serve them and only them. On the other hand, as we go further from the building we can find the public interventions which can be the NYCHA programs. These programs, within a big variety, can be art classes, educational programs or agricultural activities. At these places anyone can go, having like that a revitalized site with people interacting instead of a mute area with parking lots and fences.

A community center can be the place where people should do their meetings for the local issues and their 8 hour minimum service at the center. In addition it can be a place where people can read, rest or talk.

Art classes are one of the most popular activities within the NYCHA programs. The problem though is that sometimes the site lacks enough space or infrastructure for these programs.

the plans

 
 

general treatments for the bldg

Displacing a specific amount of apartments here can show how the volume of the building can increase, incorporating more sunlight and ventilation to the apartments and the corridor. This process can also be done step by step through time showing like that the strengths or weaks of the existing program.
Since some apartments will moce to the top, more space can be provided to public services like community centers or NYCHA programs.

This is a floor plan of the tower showing the plug ins, the balconies and the common kitchen serving one floor or 9 apartments.

At this diagram, the green color shows the possible light shafts and the red the plug ins.

Floor plans

Here are the voids, the additions and the kitchens for each one floor. The number of the apartments is remaining the same. Some of them will change based on the necessities of the families. One family might need extra space because they are expecting a new child or because somebody needs extra equipment for his/her job. Since there is a diversity in terms of the family structure there, extra space might serve different necessities.
NYCHA can provide those components with specific rules of who can be eligible to get extra space. Beyond the fact that some people might need extra space quickly as stated above, people that help their community should gain the opportunity of having an extra room. In low income communities it is crucial to keep people together and work for their community in order to sustain or make better the quality of their lives. It is like an organism that is totally depended on its people and emerging through the relations among them rather than having one system ruling them.


This diagram shows 7 different types of apartments after a possible conversion. They have changed with the basic rule to have the living areas facing to the south. The proposed plans are based to old ones since there is still the implied grid of the rooms having in that way the new rooms working perfectly with the old structure.