An adaptive reuse project that increases available prayer space for the growing Islamic community of Staten Island. A deck and three new service cores (Prayer, Ablution, Storage) are constructed using wood sourced from the deconstruction of 30+ Staten Island Homes threatened by coastal flooding.
An expansive wooden deck corrects the orientation of the pre-existing house towards Mecca. Materials accumulated from deconstruction projects around Staten Island are stored and available as community depository as well as for maintenance of the project.
Prayer space is expanded indoors, outdoors, and into the surrounding woods surrounding the home, creating varying gradients of privacy for prayer. The constraints set by the varying lengths of reclaimed wood result in a field of columns that resist the organization of the Modernist grid and mirror the field of trees surrounding the homes.
