Project by Oliver Babb. Chris Sherman
In NYC, housing is designed to separate. Apartments are seen as protective boundaries against the urban, but in turn isolate from surrounding communities, fresh air, and outdoor leisure space.
Our project aims to create housing that reconsiders boundaries found in typical New York housing, and does so through introducing ‘slippages’ across multiple scales. Dual-skinned balconies allow for room configurations that create both traditional balconies, expanded living spaces, or open the apartment entirely to the outdoors. Point circulation opens into double-height multi-season growing spaces, where residents are encouraged to communally tend to south facing soil beds and grow produce at their doorstep. The ground floor contains large open-air planter beds that intermingle with circulation and serve shared programs between the neighboring technical high school and residents. On the eastern side of the site, a public courtyard opens onto the sidewalk and invites in the passersby.
