WONG KACHUN ALEX CULTURE, JUSTICE, AND SOME OTHER STUFF... 2018-2020 SELECTED WORKS
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CLIENT: PAULINE LIU SITE: LAP CHEE COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG COLLABORATORS: ETHEL NG YEAR: 2015 BRIEF: RENOVATION PROJECT OF A STUDY LOUNGE AND COMMUNAL ROOM AT RESIDENTIAL COLLEGE
Photos courtesy Lap Chee College
CULTURE AGENTS ORANGE
CRITIC: MARK WASIUTA SCHOOL: COLUMBIA GSAPP COLLABORATORS: SNEHA AIYER, ALEX WONG YEAR: SPRING 2020 BRIEF: RESEARCH PROJECT THAT HIGHLIGHTS THE TOXIC LEGACIES OF AGENT ORANGE ON VIETNAM ENVIRONMENTAL AND CULTURAL LANDSCAPES
This drawing understands one of such spray missions which run 3-4 minutes in total, creating swaths of 80m wide, with the aircraft hovering over the tree canopies of the jungle at 50m. Spray nozzles, which are present in the trail boom and the wing boom of the aircraft, dispense Agent Orange at a rate that is delimited by the technology of the spray equipment, the MC-1 Hourglass spray unit. According to evaluation programs of the 1962 Ranch Hand
missions done by General LeM such as Robert McNamara, it since the herbicide was more v fluids such as insecticides, the could only deliver one or fewer whereas the team of resear that three gallons per acre wou consistent success in South V are subsequently improved on
Our project investigates the space-scale and time-scale of the deployment operations of Agent Orange, and in the process, identify the accuracy and the inaccuracy of the quantification, measurement, and registration of the Vietnam War and its effects. The project is inspired by the premise set out by Robert McNamara, then Secretary of Defense of the United States. With his background in working for Ford, a lot of the Fordist practices of the production line are carried to more complex problems of the war. His obsession with making the numbers, in for example the ten counterinsurgent to one insurgent ratio, the Project 100,000 or McNamara’s 100,000, were known for the failures in generating accuracy in ground conditions, which some attribute to the ultimate defeat of the
May for personnel is concluded that viscous than other e spray equipment r gallons per acre, rchers concluded uld be required for Vietnam. Nozzles this basis.
US. Our project foregrounds those controversies and formulates Vietnam War as a war on military measurement, evident in the government-contracted herbicide productions by multinational corporations such as Dow Chemicals and Monsanto, the prescription and circulation of drugs within the troops, thus rendering soldiers as laborers of wars, or human capital, whose performance can be optimized by an curated dosage of drugs, or in another way that chemicals play a role in the war, in the form of Agent Orange among other herbicides, in defoliation and preparing and reshaping the battleground, i.e. the jungle, as to open perceptions of soldiers operating in those unperceivable environments.
By asking the question: how does the dimensioning of a formless gas allow one to understand the war and geopolitical conflict differently, drawing as a tool helps us to come to terms with the scale and extent of the war and the distribution of its resources and capital. In addition to drawing being a measuring tool, this project draws and uses directly many archival images and imagery from books including Effects of Herbicides in South Vietnam by National Research Council and The History, Use, Disposition and Environmental Fate of Agent Orange by Alvin L. Young.
Langdon Prosser, Wash. Galatin Valley near Bozeman, Mont.
Marinette
Base Gagetown near Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada Fort Drum, N.Y.
Stone Valley Experimental Forest Kingston, R.I. Vigo Plant, Chemical Warfare Service, Terre Haute, Ind. Fort Ritchie, Md. Area B, Camp Detrick, Md. Jefferson Proving Grounds, Madison, Ind. Fla. Jacksonville, Poole’s Island, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. Granite Peak, Utah Hays Fort Knox, Ky. Fort Meade, Md. Tennessee Brawley, Calif. Fort Chaffee, Ark Georgia Fort Gordon, Ga. Englin Air Force Base, Fla. near Globe, Ariz. Pinal Mountains Fulcher Ranch, Greenville, Miss. Englin Air Force Base, Fla. Apalachicola National Forest near Sophoppy, Fla. National Forest near Sophoppy, Fla. Gulfport, Miss. Apalachicola Jacksonville, Fla. Beaumont, Texas Near Lake George, Fla. Bushnell Army Air Field, Fla. Orlando, Fla., and Cocoa, Fla. Orlando, Fla., at Army Grove Air Force’s Tactical Center Weslaco Avon Air Force Base, Fla. Marathon, Fla.
Port of Mobile
Kauai Branch Station near Kapaa, Kawai, Hawaii State Forest area, 3500-ft. elevation on slope of Mauna Loa, near Hilo, Hawaii Hilo, Hawaii
Rio Grande Loquillo Cocoa, Fla. Bushnell Army Air Field, Fla. Mayaguez Las Marias LasRico Mesas Puerto Orlando, Fla., at Army Grove Air Force’s Tactical Center JoyudaGuanica
Avon Air Force Base, Fla.
Near Lake George, Fla.
35-70 days federal specification US port of embarkation destination procurement information net weight
Marathon, Fla.
This map traces the global imagery in relation to the containers of Agent Orange, and the containers of those containers. The overall route across the world traverses more than 70 days and 600km in total. The key points of analysis include the East Coast for production and dispatch, Vietnam as the site of operation, and Johnston Island for the storage and incineration of post-war excesses.
Korea
Port of Mobile Kumbla, South India
Phu Cat
Pranburi, Thailand 19 Southeastern part of Kompong Cham Province, and Dar and Prek Clong plantations, Cambodia
Bien Hoa
This drawing zooms into South Vietnam in the context of its surroundings. The spray operations as mapped by the US Department of the Army, in relation to the topography and the communist-controlled territories, reveal that spray missions had constantly traversed boundaries of the state. A study of the geometries of the gas reveal that air as a medium relied on the last segment of distribution throughout the global circulation route is in fact highly instable, subject to wind patterns, humidity, temperature, terrain inconsistencies, and spatial layers of the jungle.
it is hardly inconclusive that herbicides such as Agent Orange, are effective in leading ultimately to the goal of opening the visual perceptions or the viewing distances of US soldiers in spotting and combating the Viet Cong in the forest. This drawing correlates the multi-scalar dominance of different plant species in relation to the ergonometric scales of soldiers and weapons to show how effective Agent Orange is as a defoliating substance as part of constructing a war machine. Large drawbacks include the difference in effects on different plant species, the difference in reach compared between high and low tree canopies, and the time delay in which herbicide operates, in that the defoliation of higher plants such as the Dipterocarpaceae actually permits the light to enter the shrubs, thus proliferating the undergrowth of species such as elephant grass and imperata and bamboo, many of which are most significantly obstructions to the soldiers’ visions, especially in relation to Viet Cong soldiers inhabiting the ground through tunnels and trenches. This further dismantles Agent Orange as observing military measurement, so accurately dimensioned in its barrel state, is so inaccurately rendered in its released state. Military measurement, afterall, is a fictional construct, mobilized in the war to achieve means other than accuracy.
CITY FARM
CRITIC: LINDY ROY SCHOOL: COLUMBIA GSAPP YEAR: SPRING 2019 BRIEF: EDUCATION INSTITUTE IN NEWBURGH OF THE HUDSON RIVER VALLEY
JJ Gibson, an American psychologist and author of Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, talks about the inseparable natural and artificial world. In fact, rice has already been cultivated along the Yangtze River in 4000 BCE, measures such as crop rotation, selective breeding, agriculture and genetic preservation have already blurred the distinctions between the natural and the artificial. Corn, cotton, rice, and vegetable crops have been modified to increase yield, be resistant to pests, pathogens, and natural disasters. Closer to the 20th century, gene-cutting , X-ray irradiation are among biotech processes to speed up the process of a human-centric mutation in the plant’s DNA. Animals, too, are farmed and domesticated, some as pets and others as a meat source. Species such as the modern chicken are invented through regulatory mutation, to be used as food, and cease to exist without the care of humans. Dog breeds are developed by humans breeding selected phenotypic traits and dogs have become one of the most phenotypically diverse animal species. Some call it the co-evolution of humans and animals. Artists such as Alexis Rockman, who is from the Hudson River Valley, as well as Center for Postnatural
history in Pittsburgh, are among individuals and organizations thinking about the Anthropocene epoch, and the Postnatural history, if it is ever disconnected from the natural history. Artists such as Kathryn Fleming, image a Zoo of the Future, where new species are designed and fabricated that are more suited to the changing environment. This project is a reaction against industrialized, commodified ways to think about landscaping, farming, and food-making. This project seeks to redefine the relationship between humans and the rest of the environment. Humans cease to be extracting from the environment- apple is not only sweet, a tulip is not only beautiful, a dog is not only a pet, a bee is not only honey. The project draws from the theory of affordance by JJ Gibson from the mid 20th century. The noun affordance pertains to the environment providing the opportunity for action. Through urbanization, the environment is changing into more cities like Newburgh. What does the city afford animals and plants? This project designs its way through greywater, food waste and plastic waste and reintegrates them into the dominant landscape. Greywater is drained from neighboring buildings, and flow along the cascading landscape and get distrib-
uted to different uses. At the start, water is used t irrigate crops. As the greywater flows through th Living Machine on its main axis, water can be dran by the animals and even humans. Food waste co lectors are located on the tip of main streets suc as Broadway, where residents will pass by and pou into them. The food waste feeds the animals, an through composting, replenishes the nutrients in th plant soil. Recycled plastic is used to manufactur the PVC tubes for planting.
The project references Gibson in a second way His theory on medium, substances, and surface involves an alternative perspective into designin our environment and landscape. The surface is th membrane or interface that separates between sub stance and medium, such as the surface tension of water droplet, the riverbed, or the dissolving edge o a sugar molecule. The surface invites light to be re flected or absorbed, at the same time allows animal and animate objects to interact with it. This projec thinks about the surfaces it creates as it mediates be tween water that travels inside pipes, the substanc of plants or crops, and air that carries the visua perception, smell, and sound. It utilizes geotherma energy, greywater and other technologies that carr through in pipes the energy, the resources and th
to he nk olch ur nd he re
substances throughout the system. The underside are these urban rooms, where humans can reside, rest, or spend time on hammocks and other urban furniture or simply the ground. Through thinking about the ground or soil as the ubiquitous surface, I studied what it affords humans, children, and animals. In animal behavioral studies, the pig has different postures of sleeping as the surrounding temperature changes. Goats climb up and under in these goat playgrounds.
y. es ng he ba of els ct ece al al ry he
Through this project, I try to design the ground and the activities above it, and the space between the natural and fabricated ground. Gibson identifies that affordance does not only depend on the way environment is designed, but on people’s abilities and thus on patterns of activity that are cultivated by sociocultural practices. The theory of affordance establishes a sociomaterial environment that helps us reimagine human’s relationship with the ground, with other animals and species in the environment that is antithetic to norms.
COLLAGE CITY
CRITIC: HILARY SAMPLE SCHOOL: COLUMBIA GSAPP COLLABORATORS: NINGXIN HUANG, ALEX WONG YEAR: FALL 2018 BRIEF: HOUSING STUDIO BASED IN THE BRONX, NEW YORK CITY, CENTERING AROUND BUILDING MAINTENANCE AWARDS: JOHN A. NOTARO MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP 2018, VECTORWORKS DESIGN SCHOLARSHIP 2019
According to Forbes, the average American woman today owns 30 outfits, compared to eight in the 1930s. In a book titled Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century: 32 Families Open Their Doors by a team of UCLA archeologists, middle-class, California-based families are analyzed to find out that the American household is filled with clutter in different domestic settings treated with little care. The contemporary home immediately calls for a system that addresses issues of storing and managing stuff. Trends such as fast fashion, constantly renewed electronic gadgets and accessories, and frozen food are sources of clutter in every room of an apartment.
The Collage City is a housing project that introduces 3Rs (Reduce, Recycle and Reuse) to its inhabitants and its neighborhood. It is a critique and response to the American hyper-consumerism that give rise to problems of unsustainability such as material consumption, material excess, exploitation of material and labor, waste disposal and incineration. By thinking about the Bronx site as a venue for possibilities, used toys and books can be repurposed from surrounding schools, as well as out-fashioned electronics, clothing, and furniture from NYCHA blocks. The Collage City introduces programs such as food banks, community kitchen, thrift shops, second-hand book stores,
and farming that systematizes a flow of resources and materials both within the project and within the district. The courtyards of different shapes and sizes resulted by architecture are public spaces that contain civic programs such as not only ball courts, swimming pool, and recreational amenities, but transparent laundry pods and garbage facilities. These interventions become the temporary storage space for abandoned household items and furniture pieces, and display them in attracting opportunities for a second life.
The project also takes a critical look at New York City’s past in perimeter block and courtyard housing. By reviewing A history of housing in New York City by Richard Plunz, our team is interested in how perimeter blocks boast high density in housing people in land-scarce environments such as NYC, while throughout history, different courtyard proportions are experimented from historic tenement blocks with narrow air shafts, to Ernest Flagg-type Parisian-inspired courtyards, to luxurious Astor-developed courtyard buildings, to contemporary interpretations such as the VIA 57 West by BIG and Mercedes House by TEN Arquitectos.
While courtyards have earned a unique flair as NYC’s housing solution, allowing for natural light and cross ventilation into each flat as a passive strategy to reduce the energy cost seems to be a recurring theme in the city’s residential endeavors. The Collage City reflects on those precedents, to aggregate different dimensions and heights of courtyards, thus creating different scales of micro-neighborhoods where residents would share objects and experiences. Spines consisting of cabinets and shafts face the courtyards, with trash and laundry chutes that are directed into the courtyards. This project aims to create these pools of material goods and labor that answers also issues of maintenance.
1’:1/55”
1’:1/67”
Circulation floor terrace rendering
1’:1/67”
Apartment Interior rendering
The project tackles how owning and getting rid of stuff can enhance public spaces on the ground level. People can aggregate in courtyards in special occasions of bazaars, flea markets, and engage in ceremonies of exchange, purchase, and donations, to honor those materials into better uses. The process of interaction becomes beginnings of conversations between families from different demographic and cultural backgrounds and lifestyles.
Neighbors from surrounding real estates can also participate, enlarging the social and material loop or economy to celebrate these objects. The intervention thus transforms from a community to a metropolitan scale, where the architecture becomes an absorber and attraction for people in the vicinity who believe in new ways to engage with diversity, sustainability and equity.
Used clothes
Thrift shop
NYCHA residences
Old textbooks
Library/ Second hand
Neighboring schools
B
Used electronics
Pawn shop
D
Organic waste
E-waste reuse
H
Fertiliser
On-site farm
A
Isometric vignettes in 1�: 10’ Used furniture
Donated food
Material reuse
Food bank
Artists/ craftsmen
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F
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Community kitchen
Massing model with site model
COURTYARD HOUSING
Performance Metrics
CRITIC: DANIL NAGY SCHOOL: COLUMBIA GSAPP BRIEF: GENERATIVE DESIGN ELECTIVE TO OPTIMIZE SOLAR PERFORMANCE FOR HOUSING MASSING OF NEW YORK CITY PERIMETER BLOCK CENTRAL COURTYARD BUILDING
This research singles out ing form surrounding the popularized by BIG’s pro tain Dwelling and the 8 H higher the massing, the l the units. What is an opti maximize the daylighting while maximizing the urb piece of design research of the Rhino 3D modellin hopper, Python, and a Py Discover developed by P I use it to research on a d under the context of New street grid originating from sioner’s plan. In a techniq Design, design solutions selectively “bred” to be co generations until a set of
t on the cascadcentral courtyard, ojects such as MounHouse with JDS. The less light that can enter imal form that could g for the housing units, ban density value? This h is built with the help ng platform, Grassython plug-in called Professor Danil Nagy. design space model w York City and its m the 1811 Commisque coined Generative of desirable traits are ontinued on to later f optimal design solu-
tions are approached (named the pareto front). The two performance metrics are decided as the number of household unit per land parcel or square feet, and on the other hand the total radiation received by the floor slabs, measured in kilowatt per hour to be divided by the number of units, both to be maximized in the optimization process. Courtyards, although first intended by architects such as Ernest Flagg, Warren and Wetmore, Schwartz and Gross, and Graves and Duboy as physical solutions to improve daylighting, ventilation, and thermal comfort, have evolved from being a cultural import borrowed from European and French trends of housing designs, to a housing typology that has picked up symbolisms intrinsic to the unique context of New York City.
50 generations of design optimization
The first simulation is modelled from the footprint of VIA 57 West at Upper West Side, with existing neighbouring blocks inputted as context geometry for the ladybug simulation. As seen on the chart of design solutions, three designs were identified from the pareto front, each displaying varying preferences in the two input parameters. However, all three designs display the tendency to lower down on the south-facing facade, a logical attribute to New York City’s location on the Northern Hemisphere. The results are also dissimilar to VIA’s chosen design, which was thought of as more iconic-looking and compromised on its daylighting performances.
x axis shows number of units generated in the housing mass, y axis shows average solar intake of units annually, measured in kWh.
This simulation is based on the footprint of VIA 57 West at Upper West Side, as well as existing neighboring blocks inputted as context geometry for a ladybug simulation. Although all 3 designs lie on the pareto front, the first design has less overall number of units, but the average radiation is higher. The third design has more overall number of units, but the average radiation is lower. The second design has a considerable number of units and average radiation.
GREEN-LINING HARLEM
CRITIC: MABEL WILSON AND JORDAN CARVER SCHOOL: COLUMBIA GSAPP COLLABORATORS: LUCY NAVARRO, ALEX WONG YEAR: FALL 2019 BRIEF: MASTERPLAN PROPOSAL TO RETHINK THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FLOODING AND HISTORICAL LEGACY OF RED-LINING, IN A PREPOSITION TITLED THE PROTOCOLS OF REPAIR
East Harlem, a historically redlined neighborhood has many legacies of the once rampant policies of segregation and racial discrimination seen such as environmental toxicity and the proliferation of fast food restaurants. Greenlining East Harlem mobilizes two perspectives—one through community activism, issues of displacement, environmental racism, where methodologies of reparation are evoked and the other through city sponsored interventions and consultation. The project addresses and mediates the environmental crisis of flooding by allowing housing to flood via new infrastructure. Cultural and institutional retrofitting and transformations leverage people, buildings, vacant lots and infrastructures in the historically deprived neighborhood of East Harlem. Greenlining creates opportunities and new modes of sustainability, healthier lifestyles, and new housing construction. It employs the impending environmental disaster of flooding as a trigger to accelerate social, economic and cultural-political changes in a neighborhood. The new border situated between 127th and 97th street. There is a hard Border along 3rd avenue, 2nd avenue, and 1st avenue, where there is a soft border connecting the basements of neighboring NYCHA housing including Thomas Jefferson houses tenants, George Washington houses, Carver Houses. The Environmental Protection Agency and the federal government demarcates this new bordered zone as a priority zone, where the flooding risk is assessed as high within the next 80 years. Local residents earn a higher order in the queue for relocation applications. There will be renewed concerns for reorganization, and soon a densification of the edge, coupled by technocratic infrastructure to divert flooding.
East River houses are relocated but some facades are preserved for constructing a new energy station that uses water-source heat pumps and water turbine generators as a source of localized, renewable source of energy. This energy resource can potentially be exported to the neighborhood electricity grid and become a revenue source for the community. The edge densifies, making use of public land owned by NYCHA to generate more infill housing. The phase anticipates the displacement caused by the new border. A coop program will be established to grant ownership and agency to each NYCHA resident. This agreement would establish a new sense of ownership and resale value to each new and existing unit. The housing renovation also kickstarts the upkeeping of current NYCHA blocks that are now in disrepair and are now a source of toxicity to its residents.
Water infrastructure enters the foreground of this phase- initiatives include a green border, the building up and retrofitting of sacrificial basements underground of public land, connected to canals to distribute water overflows Demolition is completed. The new bordered zone is cleared of construction waste, that allows time for soil remediation on its grounds Flooding becomes a reality, half of land within border is flooded at least occasionally at that point
Architecture that adds to the detriment of flooding are cleared out by large scale demolition; Construction materials and waste leaves the bordered zone; Public amenities beneficial to the former neighborhood are identified and through 3R is transformed. This includes: 1) Repair- the preservation of the salvageable hospital and fortification of its edge against flood 2) Replace- the elevating and redesign of park 3) Repurpose- East River houses turns into an energy station, school programs aggregate on a memorialized site
Fields are occupied with flood-compatible agricultural crops, where closer to the water edge, rain gardens with native plant species are planted to mediate flooding On the densified edge, last phases of migrations are finalized, the public land occupy prime real estate with access to mediated water edge and scenic views after obstructions within the zone are demolished
The overlay of the Manhattan flooding and redlining maps has revealed that zones prone to flooding are located in or around red zones. Although it is hardly coincidental- the practice referred to environmental racism- which depicts the placement of people into environmentally hazardous areas or, conversely, the placement of environmental hazards into areas with high numbers of minority individuals. To establish a border, or to demarcate a zone is a concept borrowed from practice redlining. However, what constituted of predatory, racially discriminatory real estate practice is leveraged by us to use the very same idea of structural and systemic violence it evokes against its original intentions in the 30s. The following is a definition of redlining. The Home Owners Loan Corporation is often cited as the originator of mortgage redlining. generated during 1935 to assess credit-worthiness and likelihood that a house’s property value would stay steady or rise. The maps collectivatly measured
the, “threat of infiltration of foreign born, negro or lower grade populations.” Predominantly African American neighborhoods were labeled as “D” and colored red.
scale, streets lined with fast food chains, predatory financial operations e.g. check-cashing; the district is Representative of the legacies caused by racial segregation and redlining- still felt today with fast food proliferations, higher-than-average construction frequencies, high air and water pollution rates, low wealth accumulation percentages of local residents, all sources of toxicity in both environment and culture
Red zone communities have become or was previously waste treatments centers, brownfields and superfund sites. These places of toxicity have developed alongside low income neighborhoods, predominantly black, latinx and immigrant communities such as Astoria, Harlem, South Bronx, and the Gowanus canal.
Redlining was not only a culprit of historical segregation but to this day creates new forms of gentrification. Gentrifiers, attracted by the low land rates, come in as redevelopment plans such as the East Harlem Neighborhood Plan- avenues are densified by rezoning.
Presently, East Harlem contains the highest geographical concentration of public housing projects in the United States. In comparison with the rest of Manhattan and NYC, is a predominantly low-income, working class minority community, with higher than average unemployment and poverty rates.
Environmental disasters such as flooding as an opportunity is introduced as an equalizing agent that affects both gentrifiers and low-income housing indiscriminately. The specificity of the historical and geographical conditions in east harlem allow for new found reconciliations between environmental and social solutions
Violence of the line in redlining, felt not just on aerial view (understanding mortgage rates and property prices on maps), but locally on human
frontier of expediency frontier of expediency
shaving cream
skin-whitening cream
shaving cream
liquor
liquor
raw
intoxication
skin-whitening cream
brazillian blowout
intoxication
brazillian blowout
fast food
self-care
fast food
sandwich shops/sandwich bagels shops/ bagels
wine
check cashing check cashing newport/ sqaures
skin-whitening cream
wine
distrust
skin-whitening cream
distrust
newport/ sqaures
salads and juice bars salads and juice bars
protection
liquor
raw
liquor
self-care
cannibis
protection
cannibis
pink oil moisturizer
processed
ultrasheen
processed
ultrasheen pink oil moisturizer
bank savings
bank savings
relief
anti-odor
concerts
skin-whitening cream
currency exchange
currency exchange
city board up
hair care
hair care
stimulant
enhancement
hair removal
frontier of conformity frontier of conformity
Reference to Amanda Williams’s color(ed) theory
fitness
additive
city board up
cosmetic
additive
cosmetic
pets
subtractive
enhancement
cigarette
subtractive
cigarette
concealment
skin-whitening cream
harold’s chicken
concealment
harold’s chicken
coffee tea
coffee tea
routine
birth control
abortion pills
addiction
pressure
addiction
pressure
flaming-hot cheetos
birth control
concerts
narcotics
stimulant
narcotics
routine
breast- augmentation
flaming-hot cheetos
bortion pills
hypnotics
hypnotics
anti-odor
t- augmentation
gallerie
relief
galleries addictive drugs addictive drugs
pets
fitness
yoga
hair removal
yoga
Fast food analysis drawing
Air pollution analysis drawing
Water Systems Thinking at the scale of infrastructure is crucial for matching efforts to the scale of the crisis itself. But infrastructure is not just physical. We build a social infrastructure parallel to stormwater management and coastal protection systems. The proposed system not only shields the city against floods and stormwater; it provides social and environmental benefits to the community, an improved public realm. We rethink infrastructure as an amenity.
Earth berms strategically located along the coastline act as hard borders and are the first line of defense for the community protecting ducts of infrastructure below. They create a continuous upland landscape existing between permanent wet and dry zones, this provides residents with the opportunity to engage in various water related activities.
The housing knolls weave an elevated path to form unique landscapes, planted with tolerant trees/flora and form a new urban habitat. While also serving as a soft border to water surges, forming ponds, zones, and demarcating wet and dry areas within the neighborhood.
The network leverages various instances of open/ closed conditions of water, generating different ways of inhabiting the ground plane. This results in a change within the neighborhood fabric and its existing architecture.
The total surface area of city owned NYCHA land is approximately six million seven hundred thousand square feet with a total number of fifteen thousand housing units. Which grants us the opportunity to utilize the power of the city and strength of community in making these large scale changes. All the while preventing developers from utilizing NYCHA land as infill in redevelopment schemes which bring adverse gentrification to the neighborhood. New Washington Houses Infill The new Washington Houses at Third Avenue, is comprised of 14 existing towers and 3 new infill towers built on three “superblocks” from 97th Street to 104th Street. This new infill functions as a connected network, which elevates and integrates new systems into the existing fabric of the community. An underground mechanical system works to provide the community with power keeping the residents safe during a climatic event, while simultaneously replacing outdated mechanisms which contribute to high air pollution. Community infrastructure takes the form of amphitheatres and play spaces, designed to fill and hold rainwater on the site – making water and flooding a visible and familiar experience. Basement flooding retrofit The retrofit of existing basements beneath the residential blocks are enhanced to provide floodable basins during surge events. Originally intended for mechanical storage, these spaces are designed to be ‘sacrificial’, holding flood waters over extended periods of time, slowly releasing back into the local drainage. The underground catchments supplement a series of basins incorporated into the promenade landscape. View housing This moment represents an opportunity to rebuild in such a way that even as the city grows more secure physically it is endowed with new social, aesthetic, economic and environmental assets.
Water channels are interwoven through the streets, providing additional surface attenuation, they help divert water surges and alleviate the larger system. These channels also function as scenic devices, transforming the acoustic and visual experience of neighborhoods. This infrastructure generates moments of recreation, interaction as well as opportunities for relaxation.