This project articulates a relationship between housing and informal economies of labor present within Harlem’s West African immigrant community. It aims to connect residents of the site with the broader community through facilitating spatial moments of cultural-exchange, economic autonomy, and community-building. This design incorporates housing units for West African immigrants; ranging from multi-generational families to the more recent influx of single, young adults. Two residential towers encompass a public ground condition that serves as a permanent grocery store co-op and informal open-air marketplace. These commercial and residential programs are then linked through several scales of communal space adapted for leisure, social interaction, and cultural production by the building’s residents. Across scales, the project conceptually responds to spatial, cultural and economic moments of adaptability and hybridity that define the lived experiences of many West African immigrants within Harlem’s urban context.
