Objective Transformations

Interplanetary Urbanization

Objective transformations

Since we can’t get rid of urban hyperobjects, we have to find a way to work our realities with them. Urban hybrids are a way of transforming our current urban scenarios into systems that respond to urban hyperobjects. Monitoring, regulating, and controlling the flows of urban hyperobjects can be called sustainability. In this case, the project presented responds to our current situation through sustainable practices

The proposed urban model consists of a civic initiative that integrates public space with an environmental consciousness through plastic recycling. The street functions as a framed open and public space that extends towards the interior of the buildings, densifying public activity and creating a new type of collaboration between the public and private programs of the building. As a response to the ecological crisis, lack of urban life and civic engagement within the site, the project transforms the traditional street into a vehicle-free public plaza, activating urban life for the community and making it an attraction for visitors. The basement space for some of the buildings is reprogramed as a public workshop which is used for a plastic recycling process within the block. The integrated plastic recycling system consists of a small-scale industrial process which opens the opportunity of community engagement in which both locals and visitors can place their used plastic and transform it.

The scale of the objects ranges from plastic filament to molded objects such as tiles. The street is made up of a tile pattern combined through different iterations along the ground surface, and in some cases, it is extruded in multiple heights creating a dynamic and playful urban scenario. The integration of street, façade, and building evolve into social practices that densify urban life within the block. The proposal brings new forms of civic interaction and community participation throughout the multiple stages of the system’s ecology while creating an active and sustainable environment.

Throughout the year we have been working on the Wallabout area, with a core area between Brooklyn Navy Yards and The Hall. The site is an area for interesting explorations in density and mobility.

The proposal is on Washington Ave, located between Flushing Ave and the BQE, which is part of what some people call “the transportation dessert” of Brooklyn. Eventhough the area is undergoing multiple changes and developments, there is still a lack of connectivity and public life in that specific area.

The current site conditions consist mainly on a wide road with low activity and traffic, leaving only a small space of sidewalk in between the road and the building. The existing buildings we are working on are mainly residential, and some have varying conditions on their ground level. The existing buildings have designated basement areas, which we saw as an opportunity to redesign for public space and density. There is very low activity and attraction towards pedestrian activity.

Our design research consisted on new modes of transport ation, and through this we came across the idea of completely displacing vehcles and replacing the streets with maneuverable micromobile devices which give opportunity to rethink the public space and street activity.

In the US most of 60% of trips are less than 5 miles, and more than 75 percent of CO2 emissioons come from vehicles. By rethinking the user’s routes to and from the site we came across the first and last mile scenario, in which streets can completely displace cars and shift the streets program towards pedestrians and public activity. Specially since the site is surrounded my public transportaantion means but doesn’t have any within, so by using these devices we can facilitate first and last mile trips, considering our site is no further than 1 mile from any public transportation system.

Figure 43: Micromobile devices collage. Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Spring 2020. Instructor: Ferda Kolatan, Co-teacher: Emilija Landsbergis. Pratt GAUD.

Figure 44: First and last mile trip scenarios. Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Spring 2020. Instructor: Ferda Kolatan, Co-teacher: Emilija Landsbergis. Pratt GAUD.

The project consists of a system of altered streetscape and multiple programs joined by hybridization. The street functions as a framed open space, that replaces vehicles with a new generation of maneuverable micromobile devices,transforming the street into an open plaza where there is no rigor or linearity for the mobility of the users. It is an open space where the street extends itself into some of the building that have the integrated system, multiplying the existing public space.

The project gains vitality of urban space through the pattern and material texture produced in the plastic recycling system found in some of building’s basements. The system has ongoing transitions between scale and space, creating new architectural objects and moments. The project multiplies the space of public activity and breaks with the progamatic categories of the site, as the street extends in and out of the building.

Figure 45: Plastic pattern. Brooklyn Plastic Hybrid. Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Spring 2020. Instructor: Ferda Kolatan, Co-teacher: Emilija Landsbergis. Pratt GAUD.

Figure 46: Plastic pattern. Brooklyn Plastic Hybrid. Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Spring 2020. Instructor: Ferda Kolatan, Co-teacher: Emilija Landsbergis. Pratt GAUD.

Through our design process we drew different types of sketches that we then altered using digital tools, having as a result different types patterns and iterations, that we then explored into transforming from 2D to 3D and materialize as a texture for our project. The pattern is then made up of different tiles, which are produced on site by means of recycled plastic, creating a colorful diversity and adding vitality to the texture of our street and public space.

The tiles and pattern are a new way of rethinking the sensibility of our street, since the contrast between colors add livelihood and texture to what is usally grey and dark. This system of pattern can also manifest itself in different objects.

Figure 47: Plastic pattern. Brooklyn Plastic Hybrid. Spring 2020. Instructor: Ferda Kolatan, Coteacher: Emilija Landsbergis. Pratt GAUD.

Figure 48: Plastic pattern extrusions urban furniture. Brooklyn Plastic Hybrid. Spring 2020. Instructor: Ferda Kolatan, Co-teacher: Emilija Landsbergis. Pratt GAUD.