Eunho Kim
This project reclaims the NYC Farm Colony, transforming a site defined by legal abandonment into a living Waqf. A ruin is born when a space is tied to a single, rigid purpose and discarded once that utility expires. True ruination is a legal process, the privatization of open territory through the weight of documentation. By utilizing the existing footprint of a building of the farm colony, a self-sustaining programme of communal stewardship has been implemented. The structure serves as a greenhouse and kitchen where traditional produce is grown on site to serve elder Muslim immigrants authentic meals from their homelands. The architecture facilitates a vital cycle of knowledge transmission, using classrooms, a kitchen, and gardens where these same elders pass down agricultural and cultural traditions to younger generations. Through this new programme, the site is no longer a privatized relic, but a lived space for cultural memory.
