This project reimagines overlooked spaces in Bridgeport’s flood-prone East End—vacant lots, rooftop edges, and narrow alleys—transforming them into an elevated civic network where lightweight platforms, supported by independent columns, create new connections across rooftops and windows. Residents, living with chronic infrastructural neglect, have long relied on improvised networks of care, circulation, and survival; this project spatially reinforces those practices rather than waiting for institutional fixes. The system operates as a kit of parts—columns, mesh nets, barrels, tires, and planting units—recombined to extend daily life through cooking, planting, gathering, and drying, while preparing for emergencies with floating modules, stormwater collection, and decentralized energy. Mesh networks filter light, support vegetation, soften wind, and create breathable semi-enclosed environments, blurring boundaries between indoor and outdoor, structure and air. Programs remain deliberately flexible: home extensions, outdoor kitchens, shaded play spaces, rooftop gardens, and microclimate zones adapt to evolving needs. Rather than delivering a singular solution, the project grows organically, reinforcing community agency and transforming environmental uncertainty into spatial opportunity. In normal times, the elevated network fosters communal life and ecological integration; during floods and disruptions, it becomes a platform for survival. Ultimately, this project frames architecture not as static shelter, but as a living framework for capacity, transformation, and collective adaptation.
