This project looks at granite through a different lens than its usual architectural uses. Through the Noguchi museum, I looked at the sculpting of the stone, its ephemerality, and its preciousness. Creating an intervention within Penn station resonated from these ideas—sculpting glowing granite clouds as a soothing space to take a break from Penn Station. The clouds are placed in different directions to explore transparency and opacity, as well as a play on privacy. Translating these ideas into a larger civic building, a new entrance to the platforms, I carved spaces out of granite sheets to create different kinds of spaces and unique connections between them. I explored the ephemerality of civic space, the illusion of granite as a light material, the balance between density and airiness, the sculpting of space, and transparency vs. opacity—which allows for different directions to take advantage of the acoustic qualities of the stone—to create a space that is sheltered from chaotic New York City.
