Tag Archives: community

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.