Background:

Within today's cultural landscape, between social media, Artificial Intelligence, and DIY fashion trends, we have begun a new paradigm shift in what is considered to be relevant. It is no longer about the creation of something for the sake of being new but tapping into a familiar reference. These referential trends scale up and down at every level from music videos on tik-tok to Hollywood remakes. The tendency towards reference defines us as longing for something comforting, familiar, and recognizable. This studio will begin to question the relationships between these familiar references and the potential for technological advancement. Can we begin to blur the boundaries between the uncomfortable/unknown future and the comforting past.

An example of this, in recent years, comes from the automotive industry. Just before the EV (Electrical Vehicle) boom in the US, there was really only one option for people who wanted to be environmentally responsible: the hybrid car. Cars such as the Toyota Prius typically run on gas when accelerating and run on electric at low or constant speeds. Around 2013, three of the most high-performance car manufacturers in the world (Porsche, Mclaren, and Ferrari) introduced three of the fastest production cars of all time, known as the three best performance cars ever made. The catch was that all three of these cars were hybrids. Essentially they took the environmentally friendly systems of the day and weaponized them to reduce turbo lag and reduce ¼ mile time, increase power, and all aspects of speed. Since then, car manufacturers have been chasing the goal of producing the most productive and efficient cars in both miles per gallon and miles per hour.

In this studio, we will utilize the concepts of sustainability and energy in a similar way. We will combine the want for familiarity, for the way things were, with the future and forward thinking energy production techniques. We will look to incorporate and sample references of current urban conditions and use them as a sort of “trojan horse”, to sneak in the world saving “hybrids” of the now.


Project:

Within contemporary urban culture, there are multiple topics of discussion that drive our current state of living; including the energy crisis, globalization versus localization, and individuality versus community. As the population within cities continues to grow we are left in a tricky spot between the widening gaps of these dualities. Within macro topics of globalization and localization, we see a split between individuality and community. Communal parks such as Elizabeth street garden, which promote social interaction, are being removed while transient paved plazas such as Rapkin-Gayle Plaza are being constructed. At the same time, macro-scale attempts are being made to combat the energy crisis but still people’s everyday patterns remain the same, unwilling to change. If there is any indication of this, it is the Covid-19 pandemic where an earth shattering new normal was created and essentially forgotten within a couple years.

This design studio will focus on contemporary themes both embedded in and isolated from their contexts. Students, individually, will be tasked with designing a contemporary housing project within the cultural context of today. We will be closely looking into New York City's Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS) through a critical lens of their social and economical impacts on the city. Also, we will be referring to the city’s sustainability, energy, and C02 initiatives already enacted.

First, we will address current urban individual and communal systems as well as energy production systems by sampling infrastructure and found urban conditions. These will consist of 3D documentations of the surrounding cityscape and urban context of New York City as well as energy production systems both found and researched. Students will then develop a formal language of both private and public interaction with small and large scale infrastructural systems via materiality and tectonics. Second, we will deploy these developed systems as intrinsic to a combinatory housing and communal space within the density of Manhattan.

Class will be held via group research discussions, city walks and site visit, as well as desk crits and intermittent pinups.


Sampling:

We will work through research, formal investigation, and site proposals utilizing concepts of sampling and hybrid systems. Sampling can be considered the extraction, manipulation/distortion, and reinsertion into a new composition or context. Conceptually we can look at the way AI works as a key into how we will work as a studio. As we combine our urban and technological systems, the seams, overlaps, edges, and transitions will be key as we need to blur between the two conditions.

This mode of formal exploration will take on the role of research, documentation, and exploration via 3D and 2D means. Precise 3D modeling and documenting systems of energy production through research will be first (sampling). Precise 3D modeling and documenting urban conditions will be second (sampling). The Remixing and Hybridizing of these conditions with the intent of creating new combinatory conditions will be the result. Formal concepts of sampling and reference versus repetition will be common threads throughout the semester. Being able to pull from familiar references and advanced technologies, will help to create new spatial, tectonic, and material conditions.

After the creation of formal and research based systems, we will move into a composition exercise situated between 3D and 2D representation and deployment across the given site. These previous formal explorations will become prototypical conditions within a sophisticated and complex system of design that incorporates contemporary housing research and conditions.


Program and Site: Housing

Students will be asked to remain away from any site constraints and limitations for the first half of the semester. As we progress further into the semester, we will begin to move closer towards a deployment of our conditions. We will be working with housing in terms of how it can be adapted and manipulated to address the public/private and energy/infrastructure that we begin with.
Our site will be at the corner of Broome street and Centre Market place. This prime and unique location is the coroner of a bustling area. Multiple new housing developments have been popping up in the area over the past few years, but the addition of the public realm has been lacking. With the border of Little Italy, China Town, and Nolita all starting to blur, it will be a critical juncture between tourist and local.
Specifics on floor area, height restrictions, and overall mass to be determined at a later date.