EoYS21_MArch_52

URECHI OGUGUO COLUMBIA GSAPP M.ARCH ‘21

2019 2021

–

We are collectively living through times of radical transformation in society sparked by the converging crises of COVID-19, climate change, economic inequality, rife racism, and racist violence. One of the things all of these cases have in common is that they are spatialized, hosted by some component of the built environment, and so there’s an urgent need to consider alternate, sustainable, inclusive, and equitable futures for our spaces; ones that in the aftermath of a crisis do not simply repair and return to the familiar, but instead challenge familiar notions and suggest ultimately better ones.

This selection of works categorizes six projects completed during my two years at GSAPP into themes of ‘re-membering’, ‘re-thinking', ‘re-imagining’

story

Although all six projects could be found to contain each of these themes to varying capacities, each of the stories they tell could be elucidated by their corresponding category.

A SATURDAY MORNING RITUAL

WATERSCAPE

ORDERS OF THE GARDEN

RETREAT IN RECESS

content

LAS CASITAS RE-IMAGINED

POWER TOOL

A S AT U R DAY MORN I NG R I T U A L

“A Saturday Morning Ritual: A Space for Re-Membering” focuses on centering and celebrating black hair, the art of hair-braiding and the rituals that its entails. It does this while expanding on the efforts of local art programs such as the BxArts Factory (which is a Bronx-based art organization that is already doing the work of supporting local artists and making art more accessible to the community). The idea is to combine more contemporary art forms with hair braiding to emphasize how this practice that is very familiar to the memory of the neighborhood is also art.

The installation takes place along the very active White Plains Road so that it is highly visible, and adjacent to several existing hair shops. It is attached underneath the elevated railway and hovers over a garden on street level.

The programs are supported by an often overlooked structural system: the scaffolding, which is easy to erect and move around similarly with the many Open Sreet restaurants that have popped up around New York City which extend dining into public space. Here, the structure extends the daily, weekly, bi-weekly rituals of hair care into public space. It is also a material that is very familiar to the city as something that is not seen as too precious to touch or feel welcome in.

The illustrated renders shown in this project follow a users walk through the bits of the installation on an early Spring Saturday (the unofficial, yet globally recognized “hair day” by black girls and women across the world from West Africa to the Caribbean).

Spring 2021 Guided by Nina Cooke-John, Advanced Studio VI

Landscape Plan

South Entrance

Hair Salon Extension

Structure Level Plan

Street Level Plan

Outdoor Gallery Path

Section A: Gallery Over Garden

Section B: Hair Salon Over Garden

Section C: Garden+Play

Spatial Configurations

Garden+Play Space

WAT E R S C AP E

"”Floods" is the word they use, but in fact it is not flooding; it is remembering. Remembering where it used to be. All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.”

-Toni Morrison This project seeks to pay homage to the unique geography and history of its Sunset Park, Brooklyn location by developing a water filtration research hybrid facility anchored by a band of flexible light manufacturing facilities. Its porous design encourages public use and activation of the waterfront by improving connectivity from its waterfront residential and commercial complexes to the surrounding neighborhoods.

Water connects every aspect of the development. It is captured uphill and carried down to the industrial band via new bioswales that line pedestrian corridors, which have been redeveloped to increase access to the waterfront. At the waterfront, water is carried from the housing developments to greywater and blackwater remediation pools, creating a localized water treatment system that doubles as an organic waterfront landscape.

By integrating water into the landscape and story of the site, this project aims to showcase the multifunctional uses of urban water infrastructure as public space.

Spring 2020 Guided by Craig Schwitter, Architectural Technology V In collaboration with Adela Locsin + Daniel Kim + Lauren Scott

Landscape Plan

Energy Potential

Energy Strategy

Water Flow Concept

Fragment Landscape Plan

Landscape Axon

ORD E R S O F T H E GA RDEN

Architecture is never neutral, it either heals or hurts. From the racist practice of redlining, to the segregated spaces of the Jim Crow era, to the invention of ‘low-income’ neighborhoods, architecture has historically been a crucial tool in enforcing systemic injustices. In East Village, Manhattan, neighborhoods with predominantly Black, Indigenous and people of color are located adjacent to inhospitable conditions which have been a result of these racist histories. The lack of care for these residents is evident in the lack of access to equitable social, structural, and environmental infrastructure.

This project breaks down the garden to our understanding of its essence— not as a noun as it is popularly understood, describing a physical place, but as a verb defining an exchange of care at all scales. Using St. Mark’s Church-in-the-bowery as a point of contact, this project focuses on identifying and tending to these areas in the city which have systematically been uncared-for.

Considering the history and location of the church grounds, this project proposes a range of garden prototypes for vast networks of care— for the gardener, and the performance of gardening; for rest, rejuvenation and gathering; for the garden, and the medicinal herbs and vegetables that the space provides with the possibility of growth; for the uncared-for and historically neglected communities in East Village, whose spaces these gardens will be adapted to in order to exchange breath, nutrition, and care.

The order of the garden is a rethought and reclamation of urban space. It is a disruption of the formal systems that make up the orders of the city as we know it. It is a network that prioritizes the safety, wellbeing, and growth of all participants— human, non-human, and thing alike.

Fall 2020 Guided by Mabel O. Wilson, Advanced Studio V In collaboration with Mariami Maghlakelidze

East Herb Garden

South Vegetable Garden

East Herb Garden

East Herb Garden

South vegetable garden

North herb storage/ Community space

East approach

South Section A

East Section A

South Section B

East Section B

Site Plan | Planting Design

RE T RE AT I N R E C ESS

This project excavates into the surface of Tomkins Cove Quarry to create intimate, natural spaces for individual artists to live and work in solitude.

These secluded excavations explore the capacity of design to affect the human experience and creative output that results from retreating in isolation while being recessed within the earth’s geology for a three-month period.

Considering the chemical and geological make up of the land, this project aims to rethink how non-human systems affect human occupation.

Spring 2020 Guided by Lindy Roy, Advanced Studio IV

Site Plan

Fragment Site Plan

Dwelling Plan

Unrolled Elevation

Stairway to dwelling

View from bath

View from entry/ studio space

Surface is extracted and set aside

Rock is further excavated to create spaces

Surface is replaced to conceal excavation

L A S C A S I TA S RE – I MAG I N E D

This project is inspired by the history of the neighborhood and one of its historical architectural typologies, Las Casitas.

Casitas are traditional Puerto Rican housing types that were introduced to New York during the 1960s/70s coinciding with the wave of Puerto Rican immigration to the city. The Casitas grew out of the necessity to occupy abondoned lots in the Lower East Side, Harlem and the Bronx (among other locations). These casitas were not dwelling units, but anchored to a garden and served as community gathering spaces as well as a safe haven for residents of all ages. Some of the activities housed in these buildings included: music, dance, BBQs, festivals and other celebrations.

Inspired by the functions and architectural characteristics of a traditional Casita, this project attempts to reimagine how the Casita can be integrated into a new multi-family housing typology. Our approach addresses the need for low-income housing by proposing a new community living style which densifies the neighborhood while using the casita-garden relationship to improve the safety and well-being of the residents.

The project aims to preserve some of the most identifable characteristics of traditional casitas: the porch, the pitched roof, the cross-balustrade railing system, the garden component, and perhaps most significant – the spatial opportunites to reinforce community.

Fall 2019 Guided by Gabriela Etchegaray, Core III Architecture Studio In collaboration with Aaron Sage

The first three floors of the complex operate as a ‘town’ as they connect through the entire block with public functions that serve the residents and the neighboring community. With markets and restaurants providing food sourced from the gardens, to art and exercise spaces providing opportunites for the youth and the neigborhood at large, the project serves as a necessary instrument promoting the health and well-being of the neighborhood.

Rising from above the town are three towers which are strictly residential, with ‘casitas’ dispersed throughout that serve the residents on each floor.

The dormitorio sizes are determined based on the most essential needs of a dweller – varying from units with living, sleeping and cooking spaces, down to units with only sleeping spaces whose dwellers will have the opportunity to share cooking/ living spaces with their neighbours in the closest ‘casita’. This allows for the building to not only be truly affordable but practical for various household sizes in its Bronx neigborhood.

View from the market entrance

West Elevation

South Elevation

Concept Model

Axonometric Drawing

Typical ‘Tower’ Floor Plan

Ground ‘Town’ Floor Plan

View from a connecting terrace

Fragment Plan | Tower B

POW E R T O O L : DE-CONSTR UCTI N G L AN GUAGE

Each time you use language, you reveal something about who you are. It’s a tool which we all use to achieve different purposes so it can and will be abused. As much as it is used to communicate culture + signify identity, it will also be used as a powerful tool to alter truths and exclude and for this reason, it holds inherent bias.

The first part of this exercise analyses the language used in media/news reporting /popular culture to describe social, cultural, and political events in order to expose the importance of language in our understanding of history, current events, and how its shapes our politics and perception of the world.

The second part introduces an Augmented Reality mobile app called Trutopia that allows for users to ‘mark-up’ their surrounding by altering existing language, reimagine new ones, and discovering augmented realties imagined by others in their area.

Trutopia, is a combination of the words, “truth” and “utopia”. It refers to a truthful state or location beyond our present reality.

This tool can be used in any instance where accurate or additional information is needed. Some examples of possible use scenarios include: • On protest grounds – to provide more context/ information about an ongoing protest; to present links to donate; to tell stories of a place through virtual art.

• Over News Articles – to ‘mark-up’ and edit bias news reporting directly over the text. (current affairs) • Virtual Celebrations – to have celebrations in augmented space with participants around the world… and many more!

The images shown are test snapshots of the tool in physical showing Augmented interactions with our shared physical space by adding a layer of nuance, or truth, or information to what physically exists.

Spring 2021 Guided by Lexi Tsien-Shiang and Jelisa Blumberg, Visual Studies

Power Tool Kit book spreads 8.5x11”

Language In Media Collage Exercise

Trutopia Prototype live test

URECHI OGUGUO COLUMBIA GSAPP M.ARCH ‘21

thank you