Category Archives: Project Statement

Work. Play. Live. Unite.

Alice Stewart Castner // Tyler Rafferty

Walking through Brooklyn, one is likely to notice the diverse neighborhood typologies that serve just as diverse groups of people. DUMBO plays an important part in Brooklyn’s rapidly changing landscape, and has an opportunity to mend together otherwise separated communities. To the west is the Brooklyn Bridge Park, a place for play and leisure. To the east is the Naval Shipyard, a newly re-purposed area for small businesses and techies. Our design proposes a mixed use site that connects both disciplines of work and play.

By connecting two corners across the site, the design begins to break away from the a-typical grid of Brooklyn. Encouraging more efficient circulation across a network of strict linear movement, our site provides a central subway terminal that serves both tourists and the working class of DUMBO.

The mixed use site places an emphasis on outdoor social spaces,  with respect to the recent influx of techies and artists. The site is designed to encourage collaboration between local artisans and fast paced commuters. To do this, we emphasized subway level commercial space as well as street level commercial space. Every street level space on the site, is designed as a public investment, each encouraging stimulation and unity within the site.

Located on York Street lies a hybrid building containing a performance center on the first two levels, with a daycare and offices above. The design adapts to its surroundings through its form to accentuate specific outdoor conditions. The facade facing the outdoor theater reacts through replication and layering of the theater’s radiating seating. The opposite end of the building serves as a boundary condition to a small plaza on the corner of the site. Aside from adapting to site features, the building also shares an immediate connection with the transportation hub and market below to develop a shared language between all site programs. Through this language workers, tourists, and commuters can find a sense of unified community within DUMBO.

 

DD Statement: MULTI-FACE INTERACTION IN THE CITY

As New York City progresses from summer to winter, collective outdoor spaces become dead, and the communal way of living that is so appreciated in the open plazas of the city seems to disappear. Our goal is to create a space that can be inhabitable in both the winter and summer months, and can act as a central hub for the communal experiences that an environment like New York City has to offer.

Our solution is to take the single-face of “the plaza,” or ground plane, and tilt it so that the public can have a multi-face interaction with the public spaces. “The plaza” is no longer a looming empty plateau, but a welcoming and sheltering place to be.

The path that cuts through the sites diagonally connects the bustling western side of the site to the more quiet and residential east side. It offers a chance for the two sides to finally have a relationship that encourages interaction. Although a lot of program will be put into our site, for the community it will be a welcoming public park space built for them, not a massive inaccessible corporate block. The path bridges from building to building while underneath there are secondary paths that connect the north and south edges of the site. The subway station in the southwest corner folds up to invite people into the block. As it swoops down it meets the market place plane that is swooping up, with a public outdoor farmers market on top. The performance center plane both provides a means of shelter for the indoor studios, as well as an outdoor forum and theatre space. The office and daycare planes offer private oases for productivity beneath, and recreational areas up above.

The block as a whole has been thought of and molded into an ever-lasting public plaza, where people may flow in and out, up and down, and through the site. Social interaction is encouraged, and that is what will make this city block a thriving example of communal living throughout the year.

Extension of the Path: Progression to merge boroughs and diversify social interaction.

81 Jay Street exists today as fenced in parking lot, paved to house nearly four hundred cars. There is nothing to reflect the collection of boroughs circling the lot. There is nothing celebrating the diversity brought upon by the array of building uses. And there is nothing enticing the public to merge and interact once they have exited their mode of transportation (Subway, MTA bus, Citi bike, or car): People will either go to their jobs, or return to their homes. Maybe these individuals will shop or eat in the nearby commercial use building; yet there is nowhere – this central – that entices a variety of these neighborhoods to interact with each other.

An invisible line separates these areas, mainly based on finances. Therefore, the goal of the proposed site development is to foster an environment that celebrates this variety yet entices this collection to fuse together.

The performance space and indoor market complex serve as keystones alongside this merging path. They are ideally the only two buildings which belong to the public, therefore their forms need to directly address this path, encouraging people to move inside towards the heart (Green Space) of the site.

Their masses – on either side of the pathway – represent the container of moments that divide the pathway and offer varying perspectives and experiences once inside. Moreover, by actively engaging with this path, the buildings integrate the neighboring green space with their interior environments, therefore giving the community a greater sense of entitlement to the proposed urban development.

The moments contained within the performance space are already known to be dancing, acting, and singing, but what is so special about the activities that are contained within the market complex? The array of shopping possibilities presents it self as such, therefore showcasing this variety though views and structural framework makes shopping a less mundane activity and more of an experience to be showcased – such as the activities upon the stage.

Diverging away from the path, and experiencing activities in these buildings away from the fast paced New York streets leaves a greater impression on people, thus encouraging them to experience the moments, and integrate within the heart of the site.

A Game of Chance – Design Development

DUMBO’s rich history is evident within five minutes of strolling through its bustling streets. Dozens of buildings provide hints to the district’s past as an industrial area – yet something new and exciting has arisen in recent times. DUMBO has become a display area for local artists and designers. The area has become edgy, with new exhibits, eateries and sculptures that pop up seemingly overnight. This idea of temporality and movement is the driving force behind this proposal.

An abundance of scattered food trucks around the site have already embraced this idea of temporality, yet they lack an area to congregate. Providing a hub on the lower levels for these trucks and carts to come and go from will strengthen and highlight this idea. Above those trucks and in the piers between them rests the more permanent features of the site (housing, offices, galleries, etc.) in order to contrast this temporary nature. When the truck spaces are vacant, the public can easily permeate through to a central courtyard, a place to enjoy one’s lunch and a display area for virtually anything – sculpture gardens, farmer’s markets, or even temporary performance spaces.

The theater serves as a foil to this temporality, yet still incorporates a number of short-term features. The theater itself is raised up into a more permanent curved shell  that sits above an exhibition space. This exhibition space serves as a large lounge, bar and waiting area for patrons to begin and end their night at the theater in, yet its use is multi-functional. It can be an area for business gatherings, birthday parties or even weddings. This space includes a large double height digital wall – a feature that can change colors and displays for different events that take place there – to continue to embrace the larger concept put forth on the site. Across the street from the theater in an open lot, the possibilities for change continue. In the warmer months, a more makeshift, outdoor theater can be constructed. In other times of the year, this area can also serve as a place for structures like ice skating rinks and sculpture gardens. These features tie in this larger idea of temporality and movement to connect it with its surrounding buildings.

The possibilities are endless; what is present one day may be gone the next. Visitors to the site never know what they are going to experience and voluntarily partake in this exciting game of chance.

Photo by author

Neighborhood Mediation

DUMBO Brooklyn and a variety of nearby neighborhoods host a very unique population, which inhabits the greater DUMBO area as residents, employees, and those seeking for recreation and leisure. Due to the close proximity to downtown Manhattan, as well as burgeoning area re-development efforts, the DUMBO neighborhood is becoming a very attractive location to live and work. An influx of tech-startup companies have populated the area

The current site serves as a physical buffer between likely one of the most extreme socioeconomic splits in the nation. A median income gap of $168,000 in DUMBO to $17,000 in the Farragut projects is physically manifested in a large asphalt lot surrounded by a covered chain-link fence, denying visibility and circulation between two different worlds.

In creating a mixed-use proposal for development on the site, heightened attention must be provided to ensure the mediation of these various neighborhoods and socioeconomic classes. The design must celebrate the differences of each sect, while harmonizing the diversity in an accessible, functional whole.

 

In the creation of a mixed-use transit center for DUMBO, the underground entrance to the existing F train line is located at the corner of Jay and York Streets. Access paths from this point run parallel to both streets until the structure ultimately terminates at both the Jay – Front Street corner and York – Market Street corner, respectively.

Commercial spaces along the Jay Street entrance/exit allow for convenient pick-up of various conveniences such as coffee or a newspaper. Towards, the Market Street corner, an escalator leads to a ground-level public market. This area serves as a space where different cultures can mix through creation and distribution of food, art, and conversation. Proximity to low-income housing allows impoverished tenants the opportunity to access fresh produce and other goods. Open courtyard space at the center of the block allows the market to spill outside and increase in size on busier days.

Nestled between the two corners is an office building which provides multiple floors of new office space for companies wishing to find a home in DUMBO. A ground level lobby entrance is elevated above the underground pedestrian causeway, encouraging passive observers of the diverse kinetic interchange occurring below. The office structure also a small café and restaurant/bar, both of which are accessible to employees, travelers, and locals.

 

The proposal calls for the combination of multiple uses in order to cater to the unique user group present in the area. As a gateway to the DUMBO and Brooklyn, the area encourages the restless metropolitan to take vacation from the big city and join in the celebration of culture and character taking place underneath the bridges.

Photo: Miguel Barajas