Our project begins with the Garden Room Book, a multi-media exploration of the site, 128th St. and Convent Ave. The Book searches for gardens in the dead-end street, an overgrown hill, two parking lots, and the surrounding block. By understanding the living things that compose a garden and their relationships, we understand what makes it a space for cultivation, growth, and nourishment. To reimagine affordable housing as a garden, the environmental and social conditions of the site were examined. The building filters the natural elements of the site, with water, light, and air influencing the form and infiltrating the private spaces. Varying scales of privacy are spread throughout the building, with a performance space on the ground floor projecting out to the slope of the site, artist residences and studio workspaces on the second floor, and residential floors that layer the most private core wall between communal outdoor circulation balconies. To create a shared intimate space with neighbors, each pair of units shares a small porous courtyard in between with rooms that could belong to either unit or serve as a communal space. Ultimately, every room is a garden room, and the building functions as a community garden.
