Scaffolding Margin

Residential + Communal

Air, Bricks & Pipes

Infrastructure and air are similar in the sense that both are shared and collective. Infrastructure distributes what is needed and removes what is unwanted. It makes lives convenient and comfortable, yet it fails in equity. We imagined taking some comfort out of infrastructure and introduce a level of discomfort for the purposes of a future imperfect. Can a dose of inconvenience help society recalibrate as a means of addressing the climate crisis and inequity?

American population in a state of homeless without proper shelter is increasing day by day. On top of that, growing number of population influx into urban cities is expected to climb higher around 2050. As Manuel Castells and David Harvey have written, inequality in investment leads to uneven development throughout cities. Yet, underdeveloped areas have the potential to become a place for social welfare as living spaces for unhoused people. We took one area in New York City, namely the Allen Street intersection with Delancey Street as our site. This project proposes scaffolding condition where programs become fragmented, allowing new inhabitants to freely move around, explore and interact with existing residents. With new relationship created between inhabitants, we pursued inclusive design where both are treated as one whole. In hopes of providing equitable society, we carefully examined remains of Korean Confucianist architecture where social hierarchy exists inside domestic space. With the grids extended out from existing city block’s DNA, we constructed a new public forum by bridging individuals back to collective, connecting individual habitats to become a large public field, possibly become a new urban fabric for the city.

Historical Background

Manhattan, New York

Lower East Side, Manhattan

The project is located at the Allen Street intersecting with Delancey Street. Allen Street has a unique characteristic that was the result of the city’s development. Half of the city blocks was demolished in order to create a wider driveway. For those city blocks, what was the backside of the building became the front façade. Existing buildings lost their rear years and were left with liminal residual space.