Syracuse University School of Architecture ARC 998 Thesis
Isaac Howland
HIP HOP URBANIST RECONSTRUCTIONS Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
May 2021
Advisor: Brian Lonsway
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations By Isaac Howland Syracuse University School of Architecture May 2021 Advisor: Brian Lonsway
Some people want to run things, other things want to run. If they ask you, tell them we were flying. Knowledge of freedom is (in) the invention of escape, stealing away in the confines, in the form, of a break. This is held close in the open song of the ones who are supposed to be silent. Harney, Stefano, and Fred Moten. “The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study,” 2013, 51.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Shout outs are in order for the following architects, scholars and artists whose work laid the groundwork and knowledge that helped cultivate this thesis. In no particular order: Craig Wilkins for authoring the Aesthetics of Equity, Sekou Cooke for curation of Close to the Edge: The Birth of Hip Hop Architecture and his personal mentorhsip to myself, Michael Ford for his furthering the awareness of and narrative behind hip hop’s relationship to the built environment. All members of the Black Reconstruction Collective for the inspiration and serendipitous timing of their Reconstructions exhibit at MOMA: Emanuel Admassu, Germane Barnes, J. Yolande Daniels , Felecia Davis, Mario Gooden, Walter Hood, Olalekan Jeyifous, V. Mitch McEwen, Amanda Williams. Special thanks to Hans Maarten Wikkerink for the contribution of detailed 3D models and prior thesis proposal for the Marcy Houses. Thanks to Kristina Borrman and Kathleen Brandt for their continual support of relevant research and our discussions of this project. And lastly, to Brian Lonsway for coaching me through the thesis process.
ABSTRACT This thesis posits Hip Hop1 as a liberatory spatial practice that sets in motion new patterns of urban development, recovers historical spatial-typologies, and remixes design as advocacy. Until recently, architects have overlooked the spatial dimension of Hip Hop as a cultural movement, but my project will investigate ways that Hip Hop fosters community in the built environment, often by reclaiming undervalued spaces and reimagining them as networks of flexible programs aimed at neighborhood engagement. In this way, Hip Hop as a methodology promises to challenge the oppressive value systems that dictate urban research and development. 1 Throughout this document Hip Hop is capitalized to solidify its linguistic and cultural significance
CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 TOPIC 2 POSITION 4 SITUATION 6 AUDIENCES 10 DESIRED OUTCOMES 11 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 12 BACKGROUND RESEARCH 14 THE MODERNIST GHETTO 16 HIP HOP’S UTOPIAN GRIDLOCK 18 POLICY MEETS PROJECTS 20 HIP HOP’S INCUBATOR 21
RESEARCH & DESIGN METHODOLOGY 22 LYRICAL EXERCISE 26 DON’T SWEAT THE TECHNIQUE 32 MANIFESTO SAMPLING 38
VISUAL THOUGHT ESSAYS 44 RESEARCH MATRIX 46 ADAPTIVE REMIXED USE 48 ANTI-CARCERAL CORNER 62
WORKS CITED 68 BIBLIOGRAPHY / MEDIOGRAPHY 69 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 70 3D MODEL SOURCES 71
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
INTRODUCTION
Background: Illstyle & Peace Productions hip hop show by usembassykyiv 1
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
TOPIC
HIP HOP URBANIST RECONSTRUCTION as per Merriam Webster Hip Hop - a cultural movement associated especially with rap music. 2 : the stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rap Urban - in, relating to, or characteristic of a town or city. a context for popular dance music associated with black performers. Urbanism - the way of life characteristic of cities and towns. the development and planning of cities and towns. Reconstruction -
2
the action or process of reconstructing or being reconstructed. a thing that has been rebuilt after being damaged or destroyed.
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
001.
Hip Hop Cultural Products - Image by Author
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
POSITION
As an architect and citizen, I advocate for strategies (proactive) and tactics (reactive) for generating community prosperity where it has been obscured by the intended and unintended consequences of racist urban policies and practices. My position is a consequence of my upbringing in Philadelphia and adulthood in New York City, in which I witnessed institutional disinvestment in non-white communities. This realization began during my adolescence in North Philadelphia and evolved during my years practicing architecture in Brooklyn, where I was exposed to the pitfalls of bureaucracy and timescale to affect positive change in vulnerable communities. On the NY subway, I read about the history of racial and socioeconomic inequality baked into the housing, real estate, and urban renewal policies that typified mid-late 20th century cities. This landscape of systemic racism became even more apparent when I moved from East New York to Bedford-Stuyvesant (BedStuy). The landscape of disinterest and disinvestment in East New York posed a stark contrast to the crescendo of desirability, gentrification and displacement present in Bed Stuy. I witnessed the building processes and neighborhood dynamics unfold in real time through elevated subway car windows and trips across Brooklyn. Socioeconomic disenfranchisement set the stage for the birth of hip hop. Being a designer of color, I believe that architects need to employ a novel approach to activate the physical and socio-economic potential latent in these sites of historical disinvestment. This is the value of Hip Hop as a spatial practice….
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
Biracial Duality & Cultural Fluidity
Pursuing Architecture in Gentrifying Urban Area
002.
Assembling Cultural Heritagevia Music
Identifying Various Stalemates Of Architectural Practice
Formative Pillars of Identity 5
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
SITUATION
003. Various states of disrepair in NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA) properties - The New York Times
“No heat. Leaking roofs. Mold and pests. Interminable waits for basic repairs. Public housing in New York City has become synonymous with the dilapidated living conditions many of its more than 400,000 residents have endured in recent years.” 1 1 Ferré-Sadurní, Luis. “The Rise and Fall of New York Public Housing: An Oral History.” The New York Times, June 25, 2018, sec. New York.
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
004. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York examined peeling paint in a NYCHA apartment in 2018. Pool photo by James Keivom -The New York Times
005.
Riis Houses in darkness without power after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 by Nicole Bengiveno - The New York Times 7
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
“Hip Hop has appropriated the dispensable and made it indispensable and the concepts and information from/about the site of environmental conflict constructed by Hip Hop culture in today’s society are infinitely applicable for design, particularly architectural and spatial theory.” 2 The perceptual relationship between white grids and black and brown bodies was rendered as oppressive, and each project affirmed Wilson’s assertions that “in the public arena ‘urban renewal’ was code for ‘Negro removal’. 3 “The architecture of reparations unbuilds the terrain that transformed bodies and land into property; a terrain built to maintain the vastness of the wealth gap, prison industrial complex, surveillance and policing.” 2 Wilkins, Craig L. The Aesthetics of Equity : Notes on Race, Space, Architecture, and Music / Craig L. Wilkins. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. 3 Cooke, Sekou. “Hip-Hop Architecture.” Bloomsbury. 2021, 66–67..
006. 8
CNC DJ by Author; Collaged Image by Ondřej Stříteský
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
SITUATION The socioeconomic perils of inner-city, minority neighborhoods can be accurately measured by the failure, insensitivity, and coded racism of mid 20th century urban planning, urban renewal and modernist architecture imposed on communities unfairly painted as “slums’’. 4 The resultant lives and socioeconomic potential of these populations are largely dictated by preconceived environmental and systemic factors outside of their control. One of the only redeeming qualities of the adverse dwelling conditions emerging from this historical context of urban renewal are how they became the backdrop and catalyst for the birth of the cultural movement of hip hop. 5
in almost every sense, it is lacking in it’s spatial and architectural manifestation, in contrast to numerous Euro-centric cultural and artistic movements catalogued in architectural history and theory. This spatial yearning of Hip Hop culture coupled with the increasingly dilapidated and disinvested built environments from which it emerged represents fertile grounds for deploying Hip Hop as a spatial paradigm or tool for re-engaging and reimagining those very same sites of disenfranchisement.
007.
NYC Rap Map by Very Small Array
Through subversion of authority, spatiosonic reappropriation, amplification of identity and communal synthesis, hip hop has gained worldwide recognition as a bonafide culture. Despite its maturation as a movement 4 Cooke, Sekou. “The Fifth Pillar: A Case for Hip-Hop Architecture.” Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, 2014, 15–18. 5 Mike Ford. Hip Hop Architecture: The Post Occupancy Report of Modernism | TEDxMadison, 2017.
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
AUDIENCES
MINORITY ARCHITECTS, PLANNERS, & DEVELOPERS
DISINVESTED & GENTRIFYING COMMUNITIES
HIP HOP’S PARTICIPANTS
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
DESIRED OUTCOMES
AN ARCHITECTURE TO CURB THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF GENTRIFICATION. RECLAIM, RETAIN OR REIMAGINE URBAN BLACK SPACES. PROPOGATE FEASIBLE STRUCTURES OF ADVANTAGE. DECONSTRUCT STRUCTURES OF DISADVANTAGE. BOOST THE CULTURAL RELEVANCE OF THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT TO THE COMMUNITIES IT HAS HISTORICALLY HAD THE MOST PROFOUND EFFECT ON. A CALL TO ACTION OF HIP HOP COMMUNITY MEMBERS AS AGENTS OF CHANGE.
Background: Black Space Matters by VCU CNS 11
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
DRIVING QUESTION
How might tools, techniques, and processes of hip hop...
provoke new engagements with and reformulate...
the spatial typologies and existing urban conditions central to black identity...
as evidenced in hip hop culture?
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
UNDERLYING QUESTIONS
What are Hip Hop’s most prominent tools, techniques and processes? What types of urban spaces are evidenced within hip hop’s musicical or visual cultural outputs? How can external cultural relevance (hype/fandom/appropriation) be siphoned into spatial agency for the actors within the subject culture or environment? How can blackness (and by extension hip hop) be a critical lens for the built environment? How can spatial manifestations of hip hop culture realize socioeconomic potentials?
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
BACKGROUND RESEARCH
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
Background: Public Domain 15
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
THE MODERNIST GHETTO
008. Le Corbusier’s Hands, still from Pierre Chenal’s film Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, 1930
“Not DJ Kool Herc. Not The Sugarhill Gang. Not Crazy Legs. Not even Cornbread. The true father of hip-hop is Moses. The tyrannical, mercilessly efficient head of several New York City public works organizations, Robert Moses, did more in his fifty-year tenure to shape the physical and cultural conditions required for hip-hop’s birth than any other force of man or nature. 1 1 Cooke, Sekou. 2014. “The Fifth Pillar: A Case for HipHop Architecture.” Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, 15–18. 010. Robert Moses Overlooks Model Bridge by C.M. Stieglitz. 1939.
009. Lilian Wald Houses by Zach K. Creative Commons. 2019.
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NEW YORK CITY IS THE #1 HIGHEST DOLLAR VALUE RECIPIENT OF FEDERAL URBAN RENEWAL FUNDS WITH A COLLECTIVE DISPLACEMENT OF 29,500 FAMILIES. 2 2 Renewing Inequality, “Urban Renewal, 1950-1966.” Univ. of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab
011.
Renewing Inequality, “Urban Renewal, 1950-1966.” Univ. of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
HIP HOP’S UTOPIAN GRIDLOCK
Verbal Production
Cultural Production Mediums
Hip Hop Cultural Pillars
012.
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Hip Hop’s 4 Pillars;
Sonic Production
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
“A revolution that does not produce a new space has not realized its full potential.3 “ 3 Lefebvre, Henri, and Donald Nicholson-Smith. The Production of Space. Vol. 142. 1991.
Visual Production
Physical Production
Spatial Expression
Spatial OPRESSION Architecture goes missing Denied spatial production; responsive to inherited space
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
POLICY MEETS PROJECTS
013.
New York City Homeowners Loan Corporation (HOLC) Insurance Map A- Best B-Desirable C-Declining D-Hazardous
014.
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New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) Building Stock
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
HIP HOP’S INCUBATOR
Frequently Credited Birthplace Of Hip-hop 1520 Sedgwick Avenue Bronx, NY
015.
Public Housing vs. Red-Lined HOLC Designation
To superimpose New York City’s public housing stock within red-lined neighborhoods paints a clear picture of the racist political residue latent in the postwar housing environment. Segregation, political containment and white-flight coincided to cause systematic disinvestment and a decreased tax-base that has left communities of color in a downward spiral of lack of resources and needed infrastructures. 21
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
RESEARCH & DESIGN METHODOLOGY
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
Background: Public Domain 23
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES
METHOD 1 LYRICAL EXERCISE
METHOD 2 DON’T SWEAT THE TECHNIQUE
METHOD 3 MANIFESTO SAMPLING
016.
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Research Methodology Diagrams
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
DESCRIPTION + GOALS
Method 1 seeks to utilize hip hop music’s lyrics as a primary source of post-occupancy reporting on the urban conditions experienced in many minority communities and henceforth, originators and subsequent practitioners of hip hop culture. Citing lyrics which reference specific places or spatial typologies allows for extracting scales and sites within which to intervene. This method has generated 1 specific condition and 2 typologies that represent relevant sites of inquiry.
Method 2 aims to catalog and analyze the artifacts, tools and techniques of each the 4 pillars of hip hop culture. In order to generate an operational language for implementing architecture as the emergent fifth pillar, the tools and technologies adapted and reappropriated from the everyday and readymade objects begins to situate the importance of their relevance to spatial imagination and potentials in the built environment.
Method 3 seeks to generate an evaluative framework by looking at contemporary manifestos and literature regarding the subject matters of hip hop architecture and black identity in the built environment. This method aims to document the goals of these relevant organizers and organizations to connect with the audiences of this thesis and gauge their satisfaction on any outcomes of this project. These manifestos make clear an agenda to create a generative logic for architectural program in service to local organizations and communities.
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
017.
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Lyrical Exercise Methodology Diagram
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
RESEARCH OUTCOMES 1.
IDENTIFIED LYRICS THAT CONTEXTUALIZE HIP HOP AS A RESPONSE TO DISTINCT SPATIAL EXPERIENCE
2.
IDENTIFIED SITES OR SPATIAL TYPOLOGIES OF CONCERN
Background: Tupac’s Handwritten Lyrics by Moments In Time 27
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
SITE / SCALE 01: “THE PROJECTS” “I’m from MARCY HOUSES where the boys die by the thousands” -Jay-Z, Marcy Me
TOMPKINS HOUSES
LAFAYETTE GARDENS MARCY-GREENE A &B
018.
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NYCHA in Brooklyn Community District No.3 Map by Author; Data c/o NYC Open Data
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
Brooklyn has 98 developments with 58,669 apartments making it the most populous borough of public housing residents in New York City. 1 1 NYC Housing Authority. “NYCHA Fact Sheet 2019,”
SUMNER HOUSES
ROOSEVELT I & II
STUYVESANT GARDENS
BREVOORT HOUSES
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
SITE / SCALE 01: “THE PROJECTS”
TOMPKINS HOUSES
“I’m from MARCY HOUSES where the boys die by the thousands” -Jay-Z, Marcy Me. 2017 019.
LAFAYETTE GARDENS 30
020.
Jay Z
Rappers from NYCHA in Brooklyn Community District No.3 Map by Author; Data c/o NYC Open Data
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
SUMNER HOUSES
This is Bed-Stuy eighty-two Ninth floor, three tiny rooms, one view Bucktown, ROOSEVELT HOUSES Their green grass is green; our green grass is brown -Yasiin Bey, Life in Marvelous Times, 2009 021. Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def)
BREVOORT HOUSES
Credits: Left: ”Jay Z” by NRK P3 CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Right: Mos Def by prawnpie CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 31
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
022. 32
‘Don’t Sweat the Technique’ Methodology Diagram
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
RESEARCH OUTCOMES
1. IDENTIFYING THE ARTIFACTS, TOOLS, TECHNIQUES OF EACH OF HIP HOP’S CULTURAL PILLARS 2. FRAMEWORK FOR APPLYING HIP HOP TECHNIQUES TO ARCHITECTURAL / URBAN SCALE
Background: G Man and his crew DJ-ing at a park in 1985. Photo by Henry Chalfant. 33
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
RESEARCH OUTCOMES DJ TOOLS & TECHNIQUES
023.
34
Lyrical Exercise Methodology Diagram
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
024.
The two-channel DJ mixer was the key device which enabled the repetition and blending of break-beats and songs in the emergence of Hip Hop.
DJ Tool Diagrams
The turntable and its techniques quickly evolved, seen here in “battle-style,” rotated 90 degrees to allow more hand movement on the platter.
025.
The sampler was an evolution of the DJ’s arsenal of mixing techniques being simplified onto digitized buttons to collage sounds.
Battle-Style DJ Setup Diagram
Two turntables rotated to vertical orientation, also known as “battle style,” straddling a two channel mixer is the chief assemblage of tools at the DJ’s disposal. From this baseline, specific techniques developed to suit each DJ’s style of mixing and sonic effects desired. These techniques of manipulation and juxtaposed sound led to the eventual invention of the sampler, or drum pad, which becomes the basis of hip-hop musical production. 35
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
TURNTABLE TECHBASE TURNTABLE
NEEDLE DROP
BACK SPIN
SCRATCH
026. 36
DJ Turntable Technique Diagrams
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
MIXER TECHNIQUES
CROSS FADE
BASE MIXER
EQUALIZE
027.
DJ Mixer Technique Diagrams 37
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
028. 38
Manifesto Sampling Diagram
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
RESEARCH OUTCOMES
1. IDENTIFYING KEY AIMS OF ORGANIZERS FROM AUDIENCE 2. GENERATIVE LOGIC FOR PROGRAMATIC ELEMENTS
3.
CRITERIA OF EVALUATION
Background: Split JEB Stuart Monument by maj22443 39
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
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029.
BlackSpace Manifesto by Ifeoma Ebo / Creative Urban Alchemy / BlackSpace. 2017.
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
B uildings L inks A rchitecture C apitalism K inship L aw I nstitutions V alue E nvironment S tatistics M onuments A gnosia T heory T rickle-Down E ncounter R adical 030.
Anti-Racist Architecture Manifesto, WAI Think Tank. 2020. 41
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
LEGITIMACY. AUTHENTICITY. GODPARENTS. RACE. GENDER. NOSTALGIA. COMMODITY. GRIDS + GRIOTS. TECHNOLOGY. CONTRADICTION. 031. 42
Perspective and Narratives from the History and Theory of Hip-Hop Architecture, Cooke, Sekou. Hip-Hop Architecture. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021.
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
REFUSAL LIBERATION IMAGINATION CARE KNOWLEDGE
032. Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America Field Guide Categories. Anderson, Sean and Wilson, Mabel O. 2021.
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
VISUAL THOUGHT ESSAYS
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
ANTI-CARCERAL CORNER ADAPRTIVE REMIXED USE The design prototyping outputs of this thesis are inexed in ‘thought essays’ which ideate potential responses to the wicked problems and life works of reversing spatially rooted disinvestment and criminalization inflicted on communities of color. They seek to intervene in sites determined by Lyrical Exercise, using hip-hop sampling methodology from Don’t Sweat the Technique and responding to the calls of Manifesto Sampling. These design responses do not seek to provide a definitive solution but to provoke radical reconsiderations of the approach of these complex problems intertwined between the built environment, black identity and governance.
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
RESEARCH MATRIX This tabular matrix illustrates the framework of situational contexts, relevant hip hop techniques, samples, and primary lyrics and theoretical texts that inform the prototypes and which urbanist ‘manifestations’ they speak to. This framework
LYRICAL EXERCISE
SITES / SCALES
DON’T SWEAT THE TECHNIQUE
SITUATION
SAMPLE/ REMIX
DILAPIDATED UNIT CONDITIONS
01 THE PROJECTS
REDEVELOPMENT PRESSURES UNDER-UTILIZED SITE NEGLECTED PUBLIC SPACES
ADAPTIVE REMIXED USE
SOCIOECONOMIC ISOLATION
HYPER SURVEILLANCE
02 THE CORNER
OVER-POLICING VAGRANCY LAWS
ANTI-CARCERAL CORNER
NO SOLICITING
033. 46
Tabular Matrix of Situational Contexts, Techniques, Samples, Lyrics, Texts, & Manifestations
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
MANIFESTO SAMPLING
LYRICS + TEXTS
Jay-Z Yasiin Bey Kendrick Lamar + Sekou Cooke Lawrence Chua Ifeoma Ebo Justin Tinsley Carla Shedd.
MANIFESTATIONS
VISUAL THOUGHT ESSAYS
AMPLIFY BLACK JOY CENTER LIVED EXPERIENCE RECKON W/ PAST TO BUILD FUTURE PROTECT / STRENGTHEN CULTURE CULTIVATE WEALTH PERSONAL / COMMUNAL EVOLUTION
Nas Common REFUSAL + WAI Think Tank. Sekou Cooke Carla Shedd.
LIBERATION CARE RECKON W/ PAST TO BUILD FUTURE CULTIVATE WEALTH
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
01 THE PROJECTS ADAPTIVE REMIXED USE
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
WHAT MIGHT OCCUR IN 1,000,000 SF OF BLACK SPACE?
Background: Google Earth 49
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
UNBUILT POTENTIALS MARCY HOUSES
“The windows on the Ave look like sad eyes They fix their sharp gaze on you when you pass by And if you dare to stand, you can see ’em cry You can watch ’em scowl, feel ’em prowl While they’re steady sizing every inch about you Fast math measuring what you amount to” 1
The mid to late 1920s saw the increased popularity of ‘garden city’ urban plans seeking to reduce overcrowding by implementing vast green spaces in suburban and urban developments.2 This tendency coupled with the Corbusian towers in the park scheme produced the presiding model for postwar United States public housing. In hindsight, these massive open spaces left the sites massively underbuilt by modern status quo of maximizing profitability of property through by-right or purchased zon-ing bulk. This portion of quantitative research seeks to ground this project within the reality of twenty-first neoliberal urban development. While this status quo of building is acknowledged as typically reinforcing of existing socioeconomic inequities , this thesis aims to reappropriate the remainders of this so called ‘fast math’ towards cultural-ly oriented and socioeconomically restorative means for the in-situ residents of the Marcy Houses. 1 Yasiin Bey, Life in Marvelous Times, 2009 2 Stein, Clarence S. “Toward New Towns for America.” The Town Planning Review 20, no. 3 (1949): 24.
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
616,250 SF 2.43 1,497,487 S.F. 822,192 S.F. 675,295 S.F.
X
LOT AREA R6 FAR
= Max Zoned Floor Area Existing Built Space = Unused Buildable Area
PARK AVENUE 485,850 SF 2.43 1,180,615 S.F. 780,000 S.F. 400,615 S.F.
400,615 S.F. 675,295 S.F.
X
LOT AREA R6 FAR
= Max Zoned Floor Area Existing Built Space = Unused Buildable Area
Unused Buildable Area Marcy Plot 1 + Unused Buildable Area Marcy Plot 2 =
1,075,910 SF OF OPPORTUNITY 034.
Marcy Houses Building Footprints & Lot Lines; Lot Size c/o NYC ZOLA Background: Google Earth 51
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
035. 52
Sanborn Sampling Process Diagram
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
Sanborn sampling is a form of historical research that can take place in a majority of urban sites in the United States. Sanborn Fire Insurance maps are detailed maps of twentieth century urban America that function as a fossil record of the historical built environment. These maps of the Brooklyn city blocks bounded by Myrtle, Marcy, Nostrand and Flushing avenues depict the pre-slum-clearance urban fabric on the site where Marcy Houses was constructed in 1949. Many Hip Hop DJs and producers’ sonic recompositions are often preceded by what is known as “crate-digging.” or conducting a deep-dive through historical archives of vinyl records seeking complementary sonic snippets to be used as samples or elements of a remix. The prototyping process of Sanborn sampling seeks to emulate crate-digging in the built envrionment and to collage past and present condition to hypothesize a potential future spatial condition. In this way it resonates with Wilkins’ call for Hip Hop space to be palimpsestic by adapting or bearing traces of a previous form. Design prototyping evolved from a reinterpretation of the site’s historical building footprints by using them as additive and subtractive inputs for the design and re-programming of open space in the Marcy Houses.
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
SANBORN SAMPLING PROCESS “Hip hop architecture is palimpsestic in the fact that it is engaged in reclaiming the subject from the object. Consistent with the foundations of hip hop’s flow, layering, and rupture, the palimpsestic nature of hip hop architecture reorganizes and rewrites the “[v]isible boundaries [of architecture], such as walls or enclosures in general,”3 3 Wilkins, Craig L. “(W)Rapped Space: The Architecture of Hip Hop.” Journal of Architectural Education 54, no. 1 (September 2000): 11.
036.
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Sanborn Sampling Concept Diagram
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
037.
Brooklyn Historical Tax Photos & Marcy + Sanborn Massing photos c/o NYC DOF
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
MARCY HOUSES EXISTING CONDITIONS
If you look closely you’ll notice That the pattern on this soft broadcloth shirt Is made of Working man’s blood And praying folk’s tears If you look closer, you’ll notice that This pattern resembles Tenement row houses, project highrises Cell block tiers Discontinued stretches of elevated train tracks Slave ship gullies, acres of tombstones4 4 Mos Def / Yasiin Bey, A Soldier’s Dream (2006)
If I wasn’t in the rap game I’d probably have a key, knee-deep in the crack game Because the streets is a short stop Either you’re slingin’ crack rock or you got a wicked jump shot5 5 Notorious BIG, Things Done Changed (1994)
Where the drugs czars evolve, and thugs are at odds... But most times find themselves locked up behind bars, ... I’m from where they ball and breed rhyme stars I’m from Marcy, son, just thought I’d remind y’all 6 6 Jay-Z, Where I’m From (1997)
038. Marcy Houses Existing Conditions Diagram Bottom: Groundscape, Top: Apartment Blocks + Various Lyrics 56
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
Garden Apartment Style Towers The depiction of minority communities as “blighted” and fit for removal became the justification for the wholesale destruction of many neighborhoods’ distinct urban fabric as well as the physical symbol of the family unit and notion of home. The super-blocks that replaced these neighborhoods was a monolithic gesture which has come to collectively identify black and lower income people and render the contained condition known as an ‘island of poverty.’
Existing Groundscape Jay-Z refers to Marcy Projects as a talent incubator “where they ball and breed rhyme stars” (Where I’m From, 1997). In the past, the only avenues of escaping that environment have been: “SPORTS, DRUGS, ENTERTAINMENT” (Camron, 2000) - with each of these so-called ‘hustles’ coming to represent stereotypes and reinforce a negative feedback loop of downward socioeconomic trajectory when intersecting with one another in such close proximity to the others and a robust police presence. The only public programs put on this site were basketball courts, fenced-off lawns, park benches and concrete paths. For the residents of NYCHA - a basketball court that was the only tool immediately at their disposal to develop skills to have a better career or life outlook.
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
She’s yelling, “Selling’s a sin,” well, so is telling young men That selling is a sin if you don’t offer new ways to win 7
7 Andre 3000, Sixteen by Rick Skill-Building-Kiosks
Pop-Up Commercial
Residential / Public Amenity
039. Adaptive Remixed Groundscape Bottom: Skill-Scape, Top: Brownstone Street Furniture 58
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
MARCY HOUSES ADAPTIVE REMIXED USES Brownstone Street Furniture Utilizing the Brooklyn brownstone facade and porch as a language of street furniture and pop-up venues allows for intermittent public vendors, communal gathering and eventual reconstruction of neighborhood social fabric that begins to erode the ‘island of poverty’ condition that currently presides.
MANIFESTATIONS: CENTER LIVED EXPERIENCE NOSTALGIA KINSHIP
Skill-Scape If playing NBA basketball doesn’t pan out, the next closest team one can join is a gang. The only skill to develop is “hustling” (earning capital “by any means necessary”) to change one’s circumstances. Drugs - the next most profitable and socially networked activity behind sports - were only the medium by which to forge a path out of the environment where no other choice resides. If you didn’t like basketball, and couldn’t get a job “by any means necessary,” the alternative routes to try to change your circumstance were very limited if not non-existant.
MANIFESTATIONS: PERSONAL & COMMUNAL EVOLUTION CULTIVATE WEALTH RECON W/ THE PAST TO BUILD THE FUTURE
The invention of hip hop culture stands as an outgrowth from or refusal of those routes out, frequently referring to them as forerunners in the flight from inherited circumstance. How can these spatial moments become conducive to building new informal economies and learning new skills? Maybe it’s a film editing kiosk or a public DJ booth where you just put on some headphones and can practice DJing. A skill-building playscape in support of crafting skills to supplement the typical “rags to riches” escape routes have been in place in this site.
LAW KNOWLEDGE 59
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
040. 60
Adaptive Remixed Towers
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
MARCY HOUSES ADAPTIVE REMIXED USES Technique Towers
High Frequency Filter
Scratch A
Using the formal techniques of the DJ to literally inform building upwards aims to culturally reappropriate and resuscitate the ‘towers in a park’ concept as an inevitability of the contemporary capitalist techniques of banking air and as-of-right development. They stand as an actualization of the black notion of “Movin’ on Up to a deluxe apartment in the sky”1 while simultaneously embodying JayZ’s “vision of the hood consistent with the utopianism of Marcus Garvey’s UNIA of 1920s Harlem.” 2
1 DuBois, Ja’net. The Jeffersons Theme Song, 1975. 2 Lawrence Chua, “Life in Marvelous Times: Hip-hop, Housing, and Utopia,” ,
MANIFESTATIONS:
Scratch B
CULTIVATE WEALTH COMMODITY CONTRADICTION ENVIRONMENT
Identi-Facade The original structures of the Marcy Houses will be procedurally gutted as residents proceed to “move-on-up” and be converted to a mix of market-rate and affordable apartment units. The reconstructed facade panels will be representative of the residents who occupy the unit, as a way to satisfy both the customization-inclined middle class and more importantly offer the long absent luxury of choice to NYCHA inbound residents while differentiating the family unit and individual from the monolithic identity of the super-block.
MANIFESTATIONS: AMPLIFY BLACK JOY PROTECT & STRENGTHEN CULTURE PERSONAL /COMMUNAL EVOLUTION 61
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
02 THE CORNER ANTI-CARCERAL CORNER
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
WHERE DO POST-POLICED URBAN SPACES, COLLECTIVE ECONOMICS, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE MEET?
Background: Brooklyn Bodega, Kodak Ektar 100 by Shawn Hoke
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
041. Corner Collages Top: Surveillance, Bottom: Fugitivity 64
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
THE CORNER EXISTING CONDITIONS
Hyper-Surveillance & Over-Policing The socioeconomic invisibility of the black body lies in heavy contrast with its hyper-visibility in the public sphere as an eminent threat to law and order. The corner as a site of commerce and community building is often eclipsed by state-sanctioned surveillance, such as “stop-and-frisk,” which police defended on the basis of the racist “broken windows” philosophy of the late twentieth century. This pervasive use of surveillance technology feeds into the phenomenon of “the New Jim Code” 1 and facilitates a negative feedback loop in which crime statistics and police practices self reinforce one another. This feedback loop creates a disproportionate social concentration of the justice system’s impact as determined by “race, gender, class, age, demeanor and place.” 2 Black male fugitivity on the urban corner means fitting a majority of police suspect descriptions. As day transitions to night, benign loitering or innocent waiting for transit becomes percieved as suspicious. Escalations easily ensue.
1 Benjamin, Ruha. “Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code..” 2020): 5 2 Shedd, Carla. Supply-Side Criminomics. MoMA Reconstructions Field Guide. 78-79.
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
042. Anti-Carceral Corner Bottom-Up: Hip Hop Harvest Cypher Top-Down: Vertical Cannabis Grow Operation & Dispensary 66
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
THE CORNER MANIFESTATIONS ANTI-CARCERAL CORNER
This design re-envisions the corner as a site of justice for its wrongly-incarcerated occupants, encouraging the productive misuses of public space for loitering, marijuana growing and acts of pedestrian street performance. REFUSAL... Of zoning Of anti-loitering rules. Of the disciplining gaze of governance. Of pseudo-scientific criminomics The public right of way is fully reclaimed and reappropriated for the purpose of furthering other manifestations. Prohibitive ordinances are recognized as a planning tool that have limited the socioeconomic potentialities of spaces in minority neighborhoods. LIBERATION... from the nexus of surveillance and over policing from collateral damage of gun violence from restrictions on “highest and best use” from the “carceral continuum” AMPLIFY BLACK JOY with public performance with pedestrian speech acts by staying too long By embracing a fugitive aesthetic RECKON WITH THE PAST TO BUILD FUTURE The stigma of illegal substances (drugs) in minority communities, as well as their
sale and use as portrayed by hip hop artists has a distinct relationship to the accelerated dilapidation and designed over-policing of minority neighborhoods. The 1980s crack-cocaine era and coinciding “war on drugs” devastated these communities by rupturing and disintegrating countless households by way of the carceral continuum (see: prison-industrial-complex). The corner represents a site of capture where arrests and sentencing practices for minor possession charges are brought about in disproportionate numbers by pervasive policing, and racial profiling. This process discretely creeps into the future through contemporary practices of surveillance and crime statistics. CULTIVATE WEALTH Whereby the possession and sale of drugs was previously grounds for arrest and incarceration, numerous startups and venture capitalists are flocking to industrialize and profit from the growth and sale of cannabis and it’s related products. Communities of color that bore the brunt of the sentencing for these former “crimes” fail to see this influx of investment nor a retroactive application of justice for being originators in the distribution and cultural relevance of this schedule 1 narcotic turned “medicine”. The anti-carceral corner simultaneously solidifies and re-envisions the growth and sale of marijuana as an act of collective economics, urban agriculture and wealth cultivation, as it always has been in spheres of urban minorities and hip hop artists. 67
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
WORKS CITED
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
BIBLIOGRAPHY / MEDIOGRAPHY Benjamin, Ruha. “Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code.” Social Forces 98, no. 4 (June 12, 2020): 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soz162. Bey, Yasiin. Life In Marvelous Times. Accessed April 29, 2021. https://genius.com/Yasiin-bey-life-in-marveloustimes-lyrics. Bey, Yasiin. Soldier’s Dream. Accessed May 9, 2021. https://genius.com/Yasiin-bey-soldiers-dream-lyrics. Black Reconstruction Collective. What Is the Architecture of Reparations?, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=eku48M1UuVE. Cam’ron – Sports Drugs Entertainment. Accessed April 25, 2021. https://genius.com/Camron-sports-drugs-entertainment-lyrics. Cooke, Sekou. Hip-Hop Architecture. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021. Cooke, Sekou. “The Fifth Pillar: A Case for Hip-Hop Architecture.” Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, 2014, 15–18. DuBois, Ja’net. The Jeffersons Theme Song, 1975. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYcqToQzzGY. Ferré-Sadurní, Luis. “The Rise and Fall of New York Public Housing: An Oral History.” The New York Times, June 25, 2018, sec. New York. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/25/nyregion/new-york-city-public-housinghistory.html. JAY-Z – Marcy Me. Accessed May 3, 2021. https://genius.com/Jay-z-marcy-me-lyrics. Jay-Z, I. D. No, and James Fauntleroy. 4: 44. Roc Nation (P&D), 2017. Lefebvre, Henri, and Christine Levich. “The Everyday and Everydayness.” Yale French Studies, no. 73 (1987): 7–11. Lefebvre, Henri, and Donald Nicholson-Smith. The Production of Space. Vol. 142. Oxford Blackwell, 1991. “Marcy Houses | NYC Planning ZoLa.” Accessed April 29, 2021. https://on.nyc.gov/3vuRFHH. Nas – One Love. Accessed April 25, 2021. https://genius.com/Nas-one-love-lyrics. Renewing Inequality. “Renewing Inequality - Urban Renewal, 1950-1966.” Accessed March 15, 2021. https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/renewal/#view=0/0/1&viz=cartogram. Roberts II, William, and Andre Benjamin. “Sixteen Ft. Andre 3000.” Accessed May 9, 2021. https://genius.com/Rickross-sixteen-lyrics. Stevens, Sara. “ArchiPop: Mediating Architecture in Popular Culture Ed. by D. Medina Lasansky.” In Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, 23:116–17. University of Minnesota Press, 2016. The Notorious B.I.G. – Things Done Changed, 1998. https://genius.com/The-notorious-big-things-done-changedlyrics. Wilkins, Craig L. The Aesthetics of Equity : Notes on Race, Space, Architecture, and Music / Craig L. Wilkins. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. Wilkins, Craig L. “(W)Rapped Space: The Architecture of Hip Hop.” Journal of Architectural Education 54, no. 1 (September 2000): 7–19. https://doi.org/10.1162/104648800564680.
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Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions | Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1.
Hip Hop Cultural Products - Image by Author 3D Model Credits : Dark2Sanity, zenbots, Luchador, HiFi Tools, Chris P. Bacon
2. Formative Pillars of Identity Image Credits: Tam Charlwood, Lynnette Mawhinney, MusicMap, David Hilbert, Architizer, 3. Various states of disrepair in NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA) properties - The New York Times. 2018 4. Gov. Cuomo examined peeling paint in NYCHA apartment. James Keivom. The New York Times. 2018. 5. Riis Houses without power after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 by Nicole Bengiveno. New York Times. 2018. 6. CNC DJ by Author; Image Credit: 1:2500 by Ondřej Stříteský. 2018. 7. NYC Rap Map by Very Small Array. 2012. 8. Robert Moses Overlooks Model Bridge by C.M. Stieglitz. Wikimedia Commons. 1939. 9. Le Corbusier’s Hands, still from Pierre Chenal’s film Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, 1930 10. Lilian Wald Houses by Zach K. CC BY-NC 2.0. 2019. 11. Renewing Inequality, “Urban Renewal, 1950-1966.” Univ. of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab 12. Hip Hop’s 4 Pillars; Model Credits: (top, left to right)
Tomations, RenderStuff, qduivestein, chroma3D.
Image Credits: (bot, left to right)
Slick Rick by Jnforte CC BY-NC-ND 2.0,
Grandmaster Flash by SpoiltCat CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Untitled by 3stepscrew CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
13. New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) Building Stock by Author. Data by NYC GIS
14. New York City Homeowners Loan Corporation (HOLC) Insurance by Author. Data by NYC GIS 15. Public Housing vs. Red-Lined HOLC Designation by Author. Data by NYC GIS 16. Research Methodology Diagrams by Author. 2021. 17. Lyrical Exercise Methodology Diagram by Author. 2021. 18. NYCHA in Brooklyn Community District No.3 Map by Author; Data c/o NYC Open Data 19. Jay Z by NRK P3 CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 20. Rappers from NYCHA in Brooklyn Community District No.3 Map by Author; Data c/o NYC Open Data 21. Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) by prawnpie CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 22. ‘Don’t Sweat the Technique’ Methodology Diagram by Author. 2021. 23. Lyrical Exercise Methodology Diagram by Author. 2021. 24. DJ Tool Diagrams by Author. 2021. 25. Battle-Style DJ Setup Diagram by Author. 2021. 26. DJ Turntable Technique Diagrams by Author. 2021. 27. DJ Mixer Technique Diagrams by Author. 2021. 28. Manifesto Sampling Diagram by Author. 2021. 29. BlackSpace Manifesto by Ifeoma Ebo /Creative Urban Alchemy / BlackSpace. 2017.
30. Anti-Racist Architecture Manifesto by WAI Think Tank. 2020. 31. Perspective & Narratives from the History & Theory of Hip-Hop Architecture by Sekou Cooke. 2021. 32. Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America, Field Guide Categories by Sean Anderson, Mabel O.
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Wilson. Museum of Modern Art. 2021. 33. Matrix of Situational Contexts, Techniques, Samples, Lyrics, Texts, & Manifestations by Author. 2021. 34. Marcy Houses Building Footprints & Lot Lines by NYC Dept. of Planning / NYC ZOLA 35. Sanborn Sampling Process Diagram by Author. 2021. 36. Sanborn Sampling Concept Diagram by Author. 2021. Maps c/o Pincus, Lionel. “The New York Public Library. ‘Brooklyn V. 3, Plate No. 32 [Map Bounded by Lynch, Marcy Ave., Hopkins, Nostrand Ave., Lee Ave.]’ N.” Sanborn Map. New York Public Library Digital Collections, 1936.
37. Brooklyn Historical Tax Photos by New York City Dept. of Finance. 38. Marcy Houses Existing Conditions Diagram by Author. 2021. 39. Adaptive Remixed Groundscape by Author. 2021. 40. Adaptive Remixed Towers by Author. 2021. 41. Corner Collages by Author. 2021. 42. Anti-Carceral Corner by Author. 2021.
3D MODEL SOURCES Marcy Houses Existing Conditions by Hans Maarten Wikkerink Basic Microphone by RenderStuff Technics SL-1200MKB Turntableby Chris P. Bacon vinyl disc 3D modelby Dark2Sanity DJ Mixerby zenbots Legal Pad modelby Tomations Bic Penby Oortman3D Abandoned corner shopby KPy3O 3D Low Poly Break Dance Kid modelby chroma3D Plastic Crateby Luchador 3D Vinyl LP Collectionby HiFi Tools 3D model MPC Drum Maschineby Team Black Cat
Hip Hop Urbanist Reconstructions Strategies & Tactics for Urban Reparations Syracuse University School of Architecture May 2021 Advisor: Brian Lonsway Isaac Howland
