LEFTOVERS : WASTE TO ENERGY with Honor

Weatherall

A design program primarily engineered for the machine needs the architect to protect the human scale. Our site on Vernon Boulevard is surrounded by urban dichotomies: the Queensboro Bridge and the New York Architectural Terracotta building, the Queensbridge houses and the morning shadows of the residential towers in Long Island City, Queensbridge Park and industrial parks. The site itself will contain an imperfect dichotomy between a waste to energy plant / recycling center and an urban farm / community center. The square footage is necessarily dominated by the former, but the experience remains filtered through the eyes of the latter. It is our desire to dignify the waste to energy process out of respect for the community it will serve and design. The site is located on the waterfront where framed views of Roosevelt Island to the West, Manhattan in the southwestern distance and neighboring Queens to the north and south can be found. This organization can then inform pathways and openings; bringing the site back to the community and those who will inhabit it.

Honor and I conducted interviews with visitors to Queensbridge Park, to find out more about why they chose to settle in Long Island City to gain a better understanding of the community and how best to serve it. Emilio had just moved to this neighborhood about six months ago from Corona he noted “the fact that it’s very central in Queens, the location, it’s just like, you can’t beat it. I’m close to Woodside, I’m close to Jackson Heights, Sunnyside - If I wanna go to Brooklyn it’s right there and if I wanna go to Manhattan.” Brent lives “at the base of the Queensboro bridge, it’s all kind of luxury high rises and it doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of space for community engagement, or for people to get together - this park is great, it’s a little bit of a walk though - there’s not really anything like this over there - so I feel like this area could use things like that - spaces where people can gather. It doesn’t feel like how the more intimate neighborhoods of New York feel like.”

After telling Kevin, another interviewee, about the proposed waste to energy program he had this to say, “this area has a lot of families and a lot of kids as well - and so maybe having an educational component geared towards children is really helping ‘cause that brings children and their parents and they then have the park to play in - it could be really fun - ‘cause even when we walk down to the ferry, all families after 5 o’clock it’s like the dog parks are filled etc. - so maybe something geared towards kids and dogs.”

Formally, we were interested in exploring the capacity of the arch to expand and retract according to spatial requirements while keeping with a language that is present in the site in the Queensboro Bridge approach to the river. Organization of the program is divided into two. The northern half is designed for streamlined truck delivery of waste to the site and the processes to handle the waste. The southern half prioritizes the human experience and, on the street side, has a large and welcoming lobby while on the riverside one is greeted by an urban farm. This division of space is interrupted at several nodes throughout the buildings by pathways that allow observation of the waste plants at key moments in the processes as well as integration of them into the community. Informing residents and other visitors of the waste treatment happening in their neighborhood is key to having a center worthy of the community. Access from the river connects our site’s riverfront to the Queensbridge park by another elevated pathway and a clear line of vision to the green beyond.

Public housing should prioritize equity and dignity for all of the residents who reside there. With this scheme, we intend to offer agency to residents by providing them spaces that they can make their own--through transformation and cultivation within the greenhouses as well as the adaptability of the units to create ideal living spaces at each interval of life. This building is meant to be a home and a gateway for the community to connect the Farragut Houses to the urban fabric of Brooklyn.

When considering the complimentary program, we knew that adding density to the site would inevitably reduce available green space. We wanted to address this by incorporating green space into the building’s design. However, since this is New York, where winter is long and cold and dark, we wanted to make sure that this green space was accessible all year round. The greenhouses that crawl up the side of the building have a folding mechanism within the panels, allowing them to accordion up. The green spaces are open air during the warmer months, but enclosed, and heated gardens during the winter. With a multitude of possible uses for the greenhouses, residents would have agency in how they engaged with and made use of the greenhouses--an agency that is present in the physical form.

Agency and transformation extends to the units themselves. We want this building to be a place that families can comfortably call home for many years, but the needs of a family shift over time. Therefore, just as the greenhouse panels fold and move, so do the partitions within the apartments. All of the apartments in the building consist of a two bedroom unit adjoined with a one bedroom, with separate entryways from the corridor. Within the units, the central partition can be folded away, creating a larger three bedroom unit, with room to reconfigure the individual spaces.

Finally, in the context of Farragut, we wanted the building to be inviting rather than imposing. At 25 stories, it appears fairly tall next to the other residences on the site. Therefore, with the slatted and glass facade design, we intend to let the building blend and disappear into its surroundings. In addition, despite its height, we wanted to make it appear almost floating, employing a large, cantilever structure. The structure itself is based around long diagonal columns that cut through the building, anchored on two “legs.” Throughout the building, these diagonals add interesting and varied moments as they pass through the units.

Adding a new building to a site as complex as Farragut is a delicate challenge. With this building, we hope to supplement the existing facilities, create new ways for new and existing residents to engage with green spaces, and re imagine how the apartment can be designed to place the needs and agency of the occupant at its forefront.