Project by Ashley Tam
This project reimagines Sara D. Roosevelt Park as a public space where intergenerational relationships are rebuilt through the shared rituals of food and gathering. The park’s daily rhythms reveal a split: children fill the playgrounds in the afternoon, elders occupy the paths and courts throughout the day, yet evenings feel empty despite the neighborhood’s dense food culture. Drawing from Asian household traditions, where grandparents and children reconnect over cooking, storytelling, and shared meals, the project brings this intimate dynamic into the public realm.
A fixed communal kitchen anchors the site, while mobile dining pods act as benches by day and unfold into tables at night, allowing families, elders, and kids to gather, cook, and eat together. During festivals, the pods interlock to form larger communal dining structures, extending celebrations into the park. Through flexible, food-centered spaces, the intervention strengthens intergenerational bonds and restores the park as a social anchor for its community.
