GSAPP PORTFOLIO
Columbia University (M.S. Architecture & Urban Design) 2023-2024
+966 553668585
hamza.a.jamjoom@gmail.com
Hamza JAMJOOMAn example of community-led resilience through sustainable practices and education.
TEAM
Hamza Jamjoom
Robyn Marbil
Shrey Patel
Palak Shah
Spring 2024 | FACULTY: Kate Orff (Coordinator), Adriana Chavez, Dilip Da Cunha, Geeta Mehta, Claudia Herasme, Thaddeus Pawlowski
KEY STATEMENT
Cienega de la Virgen is a crucial resource that nurtures Cartagena’s ecosystem which is in the face of pollution problems, mainly the discharge of untreated sewage and at risk to flooding. We are addressing the cienega as a high groundlow ground system articulated by temporal gradients rather than edges. This reading is how we imagine to ‘sow’ the seeds of Care, Housing, and Filtration in the neighborhood fueled by the existing initiative of Seeds of Mangrove.
These four participatory seed projects - Mangrove, Care, Housing, and Filtration - are seeds planned to be nurtured in harmony with each other towards long-term goals.
This will result in a sequence of short- and long-term projects that aim to establish a framework for strategic growth.
/sēd/
A seed is a starting point where the community plants a new project and cultivates its roots to tackle the people’s needs overtime
Participatory seed projects of: Mangrove, Care, Housing, and Filtration and their long-term goals.
/minNGa/
Relates to collective work action and communal work where people come together to collaborate for the well-being of all. Community members come voluntarily to work on a specific project, such as building a house and repairing infrastructure.
The traditional Camellonos system serves as staging posts that unify all our seeds, creating a cohesive network that learns from the traditional practices while addressing contemporary needs.
The community vision plan with multiple possibilities of seed interventions.
Alternative possibility of area constructed with camellones
Alternative possibility of terrace ponds and farms
Alternative possibility of area occupied by housing
Alternative possibility of filtration and agriculture through camellones
The ability to accumulate wealth has long been a white privilege, and Tuxedo Park is a neighborhood that materializes this. It has the highest average income in Buckhead and the population is over 90% white. It is characterized by single family homes in large estates. For the community of Tuxedo Park, property equals individual value. The neighborhood is a hostile enclave where only a few are invited to participate. Property owners hoard resources in large estates and constantly fight attempts to breach inequity in the area. In these large single family lots, there is an abundance of spaces that are underutilized and overserved. These interior and exterior vacant spaces appear to exist just to be maintained.
Despite the display of wealth in the built environment, when researching and on our site visit we realized how secret these people are. The domestic workers are a fundamental pillar in the maintenance of this power structure; they are required to exist, not only to keep the property pristine, but also as an inferior referent against which Tuxedo Park residents can affirm themselves as superior. Domestic work is a legacy of slavery as it perpetuates the division of labor inherited from the colonial past. This neighborhood demonstrates this historical form of domination that has evolved to reproduce subordination in the present. This work is, to this day, racialized, sexualized and gendered.
As a test, we decided to push property to the extreme. We studied all the systems a property would need to function autonomously without support from the government and their neighbors; creating a city inside their own lots plugging in food, energy, water, and waste systems. Also, a full staff to run all these new systems and living spaces for them. However, this is a very inefficient system that doesn’t allow for things like larger production, crop rotation and division of labor. This system will eventually lead to its own collapse.
Living independently from society is unsustainable in the long term. We imagine how secret activities hidden under the dense tree canopy would transform the rigid boundaries of the properties into a living socio-spatial canvas of informal exchange.
The backyard becomes a palimpsest after all the previous worlds inevitably collide. We envision a future of after property where Tuxedo Park is a space of collective living, aiming to puncture and break the rigid edges of the individual property and dismantle the power structure. In this re-imagined world, different domestic practices take over the mansions to transform the way spaces are used. A variety of ages, races, and cultures will be mixed by sharing their experiences and resources, participating in degendered and collaborative roles.
[2]The limitations of extreme property; procedures of creating a city inside their own lots.
[3]Footage comparison between two-bedroom apartments, single family houses and mansions in Tuxedo Park.
[4]Re-imagined Backyard: Pools are transformed as hydroponics.
[5]Re-imagined Backyard: Chinese residents dry cloth in the sun.
[6]Re-imagined Interior: share the burden of taking care of kids and elders.
[7]Section+Plan; Reimagined lot of equity and collective living.
[8]Re-imagined Backyard After Property.
Summer 2023
KEY STATEMENT : SALT MARSHES ISOLATE 55X MORE CARBON PER UNIT AREA THAN FORESTED ECOSYSTEMS DESPITE MAKING UP A SMALLER PORTION OF THE EARTH’S SURFACE. THERE NEEDS TO BE A PARADIGM SHIFT IN THE WAY WE CONCEPTUALIZE THE SALT MARSH ECOSYSTEM FROM A WASTELAND TO A CRUCIAL RESOURCE TO OUR ENVIRONMENT.
| Faculty: Nans Voron, Austin Sakong, Sagi Golan, Sean Callagher, Elizabeth Camuti, Daphne Lundi, Grant McCracken
PHASE I:
The first phase of the project revolves around integrating the salt marshes with the Canarsie community to restore the marshes and create a paradigm shift in the way people view nature’s importance in building a reselient city.
STEP 1: DREDGE AND DEPOSIT SEDIMENT
STEP 2: SEDIMENT TRAPPING
STEP 3: CREEK EXPANSION AND SALT MARSH GROWTH
