Design Review at KUL on 28 March 2012

This is the presentation for the review at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven on 28 March 2012.

Prospect Plaza, Brooklyn - The tower-in-the-park revitalized

The graduation thesis focuses on the rehabilitation of the New York City Housing Authority's public housing complex, Prospect Plaza, in Ocean-Hill Brownsville, Brooklyn. It aims at revitalizing the "tower-in-the-park"-typology with its horrifying image. In contrary to the current tendency of demolishing them in favor of the homogenizing blocks with its neo-traditional row houses, the rehabilitation project stands for preserving not only a great historical value, but also an important variation on the regular grain size in the Grid.

Case Study (update)

Design Review at KUL on 1 Feb 2012

This is the presentation of a first design proposal review at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven on 1 Feb 2012. The following is a typed version of the presentation:

The site I’ve chosen is situated in the East of Crown Height, next to Ocean-Hill Brownville. The site contains the Prospect Plaza public housing towers. The 'tower in the park' is a problematic typology. It represents a failure of Modernism and is often associated with a high crime rate, a high percentage of youth, racial discrimination, violence and drugs. 

The Prospect Plaza public housing towers were built in 1974. In 1997, the New York City Housing Authority decided to renovate the Prospect Plaza towers with the help of federal funding from the ‘HOPE VI’-program. In 2001, the temporary relocation of the tenants was completed. The towers were then being dismantled and sealed with bricks. Since the ‘HOPE VI’-program demanded a decrease in density, one of the four towers was been demolished in 2005. The demolition included a the former community center. In 2009, a private developer had built 150 rental housing units on the adjacent site of the three remaining towers. Unfortunately, all of these units were aimed at a higher income than the income of residents of public housing. Thus these new units are unaffordable for the former Prospect Plaza tenants. Today, the three remaining towers are still standing vacant. The tenants have now been temporary relocated for more than 10 years. 

There is a plan for the future development. It seems that also the remaining towers will be demolished, instead of being renovated. A traditional row house scale development will replace them. Unfortunately a very small percentage of the 360 new housing units will be public housing. Therefore with this plan, almost none of the former Prospect Plaza tenants will be able to return home. Michael Sorkin refers to this gentrification process by the federal ‘HOPE VI’-program as common all over the United States:“There is no doubt that the neo-traditionalist row houses that have replaced the penitential public housing towers being demolished in so many American cities represent a far more livable alternative. But it is equally clear that the net effect of the HOPE VI program behind this transformation is the cruel displacement of 90 percent of the former population.”

Therefore for my design project I want to question if the traditional row house development is the only viable solution for the grid? With my design project I will rehabilitate a 15-story Prospect Plaza tower, without displacing the former tenants. The main program will then be public housing. To address the current perception and the problems with the 'tower in the park', I’ve added three additional small programs. The first one will be a small high school. This school will be primarily focused on the residents of the public housing units. The small scale and small classes will make sure that the students feel more connected to the school. Therefore it will try to reduce the local drop-out rate on the age of 17, without getting a diploma. After school activities and polyvalent use by the residents must reduce crime and violence. The second one will be shared facilities for the residents. So for example a Child Day Care Centre would reduce the unemployment rate, especially for single parents. The third program will be a legalized ‘Soft drugs’-zone. The purpose of this zone is to reduce the organized drugs crime, which is often to be found in these public housing towers. 

The pictures show that the existing interior is very dark, small and deteriorated. Since the interior is in such bad condition, the tower will be stripped to the core concrete structure and preserve this robust identity of the 'tower in the park'. Unused voids and holes of former installation will be filled with a translucent material to keep the identity of the former structure intact. 

The circulation will be moved outside, instead of in the dark center. This will create an open and living facade, compared to the monotonous and closed “tower in the park”. A playful position of stairs between the horizontal walkways will provide a quicker connection to residents on other floors and improve the social control. These stairs are oriented to the north. In the south, there are terraces in the shape of boxes. They are placed exact between the columns and floors of the former structure to accentuate it. This system would make it possible to create duplexes, without destroying the concrete structure.

Design Proposal

Dear Prospect Plaza, can we gentrify your tenants instead of your site?

I want to rehabilitate the Prospect Plaza site and design an alternative future for this ‘tower in the park’, without gentrifying the land by pushing out the poor. I’d like to explore if it’s possible to gentrify the tenants, instead of the site. To do so, the area should be rezoned in favor of a new economy. An economical boost could be by the legalization of the illegal, already taking place

there...

The recently realised rental units are built in vision of demolition of the towers and gentrification of the site. Since the current status of prospect plaza site is heading towards a full neighborhood scale project any moment now. Therefore should I explore an alternative future from the present status or a past one? Which one would have more meaning as the punctual jumpstart project in the context of the Crown Heights site analysis?

The alternative future should certainly not decrease in density, and there should be a place for all of the former poor tenants. It should also conserve the ‘tower’. Why should we constantly erase every failed chapter in history? Like Interboro or Lacaton and Vasal, I want to explore ways of reintegrating this typology, instead of simply demolishing it.

Landbanking, the current value of public housing...

The 'towers in the park' are a problematic typology. They represent the failure of Modernism and are often associated with a high crime rate, violence, drugs and high concentrations of young and poor people. These sites with 'towers in the park' have certainly a need to be redeveloped.

Current approach is to demolish all these public housing towers and to replace them by the regular block of a more neighborhood-friendly scale. This is realized by federal funding programs like ‘HOPE VI’ and ‘Choice Neighborhood’. The city sells then it public housing properties to private developers to rehabilitate the sites. Due to this privatization these new neighborhood-scale projects become also mixed-income, since this is more profitable for the developer. These actions result in a serious decrease in the total amount of available units for the poor, since most of the new units are aiming at a higher income class. Many of the former tenants will thus most likely never be able to return. These tenants are simply pushed to other poor neighborhoods and ‘towers in the park’, making those even worse.

Such approach has the purpose of upscaling the neighborhood. Although  these new projects are undoubtly better for the neighborhood than the former towers, they ignore the former tenants. The city is here in fact provoking, supporting and controlling gentrification.

In what way is this approach different from the past Urban Renewal and Slum Clearance programs, since it is still removing the poor?

Crown Heights - Exploring the grid

This presentation is about the site Crown Heights, and in this analysis, we are exploring the grid. During our analysis we have seen a potential to improve the livability of the grid. That’s why we asked ourselves some questions related to these topics.

Our first approach was to define the borders of Crown Heights, between which we collected all kinds of data. But after a while we came to the conclusion that neighborhoods that are located in the grid don't have specific borders. The aspects that form these borders can change in a very short period of time. That is why we changed our area of analysis to a larger area, including parts of adjacent neighborhoods such as East Flatbush, Brownsville, Prospect Heights and Bed-Stuy.

Presentation made by Antrees Engelen, Koen Moesen, Pieter Van den Poel, Arnout Van Soom, and Sofie Verjans.

Quickstart Proposal on Fri. 11/18.

Quickstart proposal on the future of the Prospect Plaza site in Crown Heights/Brownsville. 

Video of the presentation at GSAPP on Wed. 9/28.

Introduction

Presentation of the part 'Living Models'

Case Study

Experiment

As one enters New York City’s subway system, one will simply be reduced to a small particle in a continuous flow of people. Being this particle, one will be carried in subway cars, constantly exposed to the darkness of the subway tunnels. This darkness reveals nor a place, nor a time. It mirrors the interior in the winter as bright as in the summer. Since the exterior has become a copy of the interior, one has no choice, but to watch the interior with its travelers. The subway train seems to be the antithesis on the scenic bus tour. 

At several points in the subway system of New York City, there are two parallel tracks for subway trains heading in the same direction. So at these points, subway trains are able to pass each other. Although these moments are unpredictable, the reflections of the interior suddenly make place for a new opportunity: trainspotting. Rarely, the passing trains ride at the same speed. But when they do, the darkness of the tunnels is being replaced by the interior of the adjacent subway car. An extended interior space originates. Not defined by place or time, this space becomes so unstable that it can scatter at any moment now. 

In such undefined, unpredictable and unstable space, is one able to interact with someone in the passing subway car?

Presentation at GSAPP Columbia University

Presentation of the theme 'Living Models', by Camiel Van Noten, Pieter Van den Poel and Koen Moesen. Presented at GSAPP Columbia University on Wed. 9/28.

Living in the Grid

The Grid of Kings County

The Grid of the borough of Brooklyn is clearly not as consistent as the one of Manhattan. In fact, it looks like the Grid is a mosaic of multiple smaller Grid fragments, each built in another direction. 

What is it like to live in the Grid, a Cartesian system that could be as easily continued to the infinity? It not only suggests decentralization, it blocks any form of centralization. In a society where the virtual public space is overwhelming the physical public space, what does become of such decentralized space? Is it still able to function as a meeting place? Or, will it eventually become solely a logistical system for people and goods, just like the supplies it already delivers? 

Mapping - Fawcett-Tang & Owen

Fawcett-Tang R. & Owen W., Mapping: An Illustrated Guide To Graphic Navigational Systems,
RotoVision, Mies, 2005, 208 pp.

Although not every page from 'Mapping: An Illustrated Guide To Graphic Navigational Systems' is very relevant for our thesis, it is an interesting book. It certainly broadened my definition of a 'map' and therefore 'cartography'. So here I will try to broaden yours...

Websites about Data Mapping and Visualization

DocuBurst: visualisation of a document content

Here I present a list of interesting websites about data mapping and visualization. Some of them may not be very relevant, but are meant to be inspirational.

Delirious New York, Koolhaas

KOOLHAAS, Rem, Delirious New York, Monacelli Press, New York, 1994, 320 pp.

I certainly recommend reading 'Delirious New York' to everyone. After a short prehistory, Koolhaas starts with a chapter on Coney Island, the most southern part of the borough of Brooklyn. Here we discover an urbanized place with amusement and spectacle as its only goals: "... the potential of technology for the support and production of fantasy ...". Koolhaas paints Coney Island with its 'technology of the fantastic' as the embryonic experiment, in Brooklyn, essential for the development of Manhattan.

Metacity/Datatown, MVRDV

MAAS, Winy, et al., Metacity/Datatown, 010 publishers, Rotterdam, 1999, 224 pp.
(Source: Google Books)

Metacity/Datatown is a book, based on a video-installation of the same title that was exhibited in 1998-1999 and produced by MVRDV. It consists of two parts: Metacity and Datatown. Here I will summarize and discuss the most relevant, interesting and inspirational statements from the book.