Theater played a crucial role in Harlem’s history. Famous community’s theaters like the Apollo Theater have served as platforms for local artists to showcase their talents, and eventually became spaces of empowerment, providing a voice for the local community and contributing significantly to the cultural and social fabric of Harlem.
Instead of integrating theaters or performance spaces as a amenities in the building, we are trying to extract fundamental attributes that make up the theatrical experience and implement them into housing spatially and visually as a mean to explore a new co-living experience enhanced by the idea of theater.
Housing itself is already theatrical. Performance activities are not concerts and actual theater plays. Pedestrians walking along the hallway, the sound and smell of resident’s cooking, the voice from your neighbor’s arguing and laughing, these are all elements that sort of compose a large play with the space of living as a backdrop, and all the diverse daily activities will be perceived as performances, viewed by the community collectively. As our title says, HOUSING AS THEATER, LIFE AS PERFORMANCE.
