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.