Kinetic Hubs
SITE: Edgemere, NY
YEAR: Architecture Grad - 2021 / 2022, Semester 3 / 4
UNIVERSITY: CUNY Spitzer School of Architecture
DURATION OF PROJECT: 8 months
The Kinetic Hub focuses on activating the multitude of vacant lots around the neighborhood of Edgemere. Edgemere has long been ignored and underfunded, but the community is vibrant and ready to mobilize. This proposal took inspiration from community visioning sessions, the Edgemere Community Land Trust, and research on the organisms around Jamaica Bay. This intervention proposes a response for how to build in a community lacking essential services that is consistently inundated by water.
This map of Jamaica Bay tells the story of how the land came to be, how people circulate the land and interact with nature.
Exposing how contaminations from waste water treatments eventually harmed the environment, intended to protect residents.
There is a stark division in the Rockaways between race and wealth. The east side of the Rockaways has largely been ignored and underfunded which has caused a lack of services; however, the people within neighborhoods such as Edgemere are passionate, kind, and ready to mobilize to have their hopes for the community to become a reality. The design proposal began with the desire to be a part of this communities discussions and to create an intervention that would prioritize their community.
The first thing that is noticeable in the neighborhood of Edgemere are the vacant lots and flooding events. Sunny day flooding is the result of combined sewer overflow. Essentially, untreated sewage is discharged from catch basins into the streets. An issue progressively worsening as a result of poorly designed sewer systems, high tides, and sea level rise.
We understand that the flood will come, but in the meantime, the years left to live here, could be lived with more dignity. The idea is that the interventions would be modular, inexpensive, and as least disruptive as possible, in order to be built with least resistance and bureaucracy and promote human and nature coexistence.
The city is reluctant to help develop this area due to low income levels in the neighborhood and the flood risk, so the Edgemere community is looking at creating a community land trust for all the vacant lots within the neighborhood. The CLT is a nonprofit entity that separates ownership of land from the structures on the land. It leases the land to the potential homeowners while maintaining control of land. This intends to provide long term housing affordability. This land is then governed by board members living in the CLT, neighboring residents, local organizations, and public officials.
The CLT will allow the residents of Edgemere to control their land, but how do you build on a land that will sometimes be inundated with
water due to the rising sea levels and stronger storms? This question led the community board of Edgemere to begin community workshops where community members could come to brainstorm. I assisted and helped run the workshops with the community.
Edgemere Community Workshops at RISE
The workshops led my research to look at how other species in the area have lived and interacted with land and water. By learning from these species, our designs could emulate their practices, creating a new way of thinking about our spaces and architecture. I led a workshop with local Edgemere high school students where we made study models based off the different ways other species live in the area.
What does this architecture look like during a sunny day? What does the architecture need to look like during a time of crisis? How does the architecture work for the wants, interests, and needs community members? The research phase of this project showcased the need for an architecture that can transform for the community. Edgemere residents deserve to have a say on what this architecture will be on these vacant lots, and the design proposal attempts to create an architecture that will be kinetic and owned by the people who will be using it. The design intends to create a space for whatever program the community needs at that moment while co-existing with the land and water.
Kinetic Hubs
The Kinetic Hub focuses on activating the multitude of vacant lots around the neighborhood of Edgemere. Edgemere has long been ignored and underfunded, but the community is vibrant and ready to mobilize. This proposal took inspiration from community visioning sessions, the Edgemere Community Land Trust, and research on the organisms around Jamaica Bay. This intervention proposes a response for how to build in a community lacking essential services that is consistently inundated by water.
My proposal begins to consider structural modules that will be built with a framework that allows Edgemere residents to transform the walls, floors, and roofs of the architecture.
Protocols
The Kinetic Hub is designed to be assembled in a multitude of different ways. The architecture can transform itself by unfolding, sliding, and connecting between one another depending on community needs. Protocol A spaces lends itself to outdoor, sunny day activities while the other protocols transform the architecture to allow for more interior spaces.
The materials used for the Kinetic Hubs are vital in creating an intervention that can seamlessly transform between protocols depending on the current ecological and cultural state of the neighborhood.
