ARCH 302 | SPRING 2017 | NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

The site of the “Timber in the City” Project is in the Lower East Side of NYC, at the bustling street corner of Essex and Delancey. Once a hub for tenements, developments in the late 1900’s to the south of the site rise above the landscape created by the shorter tenements to the north. Within the surrounding urban fabric, the two blocks we plan to build on are at a crossroads between the two types of housing, and would be helped with a new location for the nearby Essex Street Market and an Andy Warhol museum, as this area is known for being Warhol’s neighborhood. 

​

The market was given the most accessible and urban portion of the site (the long stretch of Delancey) to draw in people from the street and encourage a busy, diverse environment of meeting and exchanging culture. The permanent stalls were placed along the wall next to the street to give vendors of the current market advertising space and a more permanent place to set up shop. Toward the middle of the market, flexible stalls are for new, up and coming vendors to start out and grow. All stalls are allotted and divided through the structure of columns and girders.

​

The museum needed advertisement and a public identity, but with much less street presence than did the market, so it stayed on the first level but behind the market on a quiet corner of the site. The remainder of the museum is below grade, as controlled, bright lighting is the best way to display Warhol’s work The atriums to the housing give the galleries some visibility and the water feature guides guests toward the entrance. Because the museum needs controlled lighting, we didn’t want the exterior wall to be entirely opaque, but instead put a hallway and an area open to below along the street side. This way, the museum is advertised by the patrons moving through the space rather than the artwork. The hallway, natural light, and two-level areas help with museum fatigue and make the museum more than just gallery space.

​

Market and museum meet at a faux river running through the middle length of the building that allows public space for eating on the market side or lobby seating for right outside the museum entrance. The housing sits atop the plinth of market and museum, and the entire structure of the building is based on the housing’s system, since the housing is by far the largest portion of the program. The housing speaks to the integration through the courtyard skylights that illuminate the water feature for the market and museum.

​

The atrium that takes up the entire Northwest side of the first level is a neutral area of the project that combines access to all three programs, and a secondary atrium on the southeast border of the site allows for safe exiting and convenience for those approaching the site from the Williamsburg bridge rather than the subway or bus stop. This atrium leads residents to the housing. Our intention for the housing was to create neighborhoods through the walkup concept that the tenements preserved. We broke down the scale of the complex by creating a core containing an elevator and interlocking stair that allowed four units on each floor. We decided on how many of each unit would be put in the module by the proportion of the required amount. These modules of one core and four units stack directly on top of each other and create towers. The north side of the building has six towers, and the south does as well, creating a second level courtyard between the two areas just for the residents. By getting rid of long hallways and breaking down the scale of such a large housing project, residents feel like they’re in a neighborhood rather than just another big hall within a huge city.

​