Urban Disidentification : land of opportunity
Listed are the ten largest U.S. cities by size in 1950, followed by five cities that will appear among top ten in 2000 but were much smaller in 1950. this chart tells us about how American cities redistributed population over the second half of the twentieth century. It also reveals that cities in general declined in size. It is true that New York City still on the top among others over 50 years, while some other cities are switching. But above all, the last column will give us new perspective, more than just a growing population. The last column on the right in the chart is Dissimilarity Index, a demographic measure of the evenness with which two groups are distributed across the component geographic areas that make up a larger area. In this calculation 0 represents complete racial integration, and 100 represents complete racial segregation. New York is complex, with multiracial inhabitants, more than only black and white racial lines. This social segregation also implies inequality of income and wealth. This phenomenon leads our design research to be started from an extreme social mobility and economic movement that happens in New York City.
As reference study, in Hong Kong, developers in mid-20th century has created megastructure buildings that determined their architectural form. Those “City in a Building” house population up to 10,000. The internal circulation resembles urban streets that connects varied program within the Building. Nowadays, Chungking Mansion, Mirador Mansion, I-Feng Mansion, and Manking Building are not only known as a local permanent place to live in, but also an overnight or short stay international hostels together with their supporting programs. To transform building into contemporary and socially sustainable part of urbanism, the new program ‘beyond’ residential has added as a blending tool. Short-stay living is a high needs, since New York City is the most international tourism recipient city in the world. Implication of program alteration in the building not only can be seen through its facade, but also building internal system that disalienating particular program. The relationship between the static and dynamic residential program creates a new building typology with no identity who inside it, or we call it Urban Disidentification. It began with the interpretation of existing condition, where the more triangulated groundfloor can be created through density rearrangement. Meanwhile, the existing view from other building also still maintained through massing transformation as ecological-friendly approach.
existing
increase density
static dynamic
connected park white + latino
65.7%
program
stacked - free groundfloor
cut height black
25.1%
asian
11.8% travellers 52,000,000 people
static living
dynamic living embrace
retain existing view and height
travellers
new york
residents
space between building shared resources
current development buildings in new york
future development the podiumless bighead
The building form itself began with the interpretation of a local and worldwide current urban development, especially in New York, where towers with podium embody an invisible space in between. these spaces have a similar characteristic in form, which is a podiumless-bighead-tower, the reverse. With this “Tetris� principal, future urban growth translated as an infill development, further application of lacking a space. A bigger, more integrated, and more continuous ground floor triangulate the shared resources at the bottom of the building, together with the existing park.
playground
short-stay residential long-stay residential
cantilevered structure
market envelope structure
basement
curtain wall section
program 0 2 5
10
20
50 m
In order to actualize this form, steel structure system has implied into building. The cantilevered structural steel frame’s continuous overturning forces are resisted by numerous axial steel connections that ultimately tie to the cast-in-place concrete elevator/stair towers. This allows the tower to provide more volume without additional structure touching the ground. As result, view from lower existing building to Hudson River can be maintained and Rector Park can be expanded to inner court of the building. The representation of program inside building participated by very simple curtain wall system that follows room grid, while the shared void playground showed by its tilt surface to create visitors spatial experience.
structure system
structure+floorslab
typical plan
ground plan (fresh market)
Within Lower Manhattan, the 1 Bedroom houses for the rent have a slightly similar range around $100 per day whereas a hotel rate can be doubled. Meanwhile more hostels in northern part can be afforded only around $40 per night. This inequality plays out within the new building in order to create a collaborative way of living and sharing.
shared playground
0 2 5
10
20
50 m
This near-future fantasy that everyone from every country might live in one building modifies the typical alienated one specific program within building. The future lives of being together and mixed lifestyle implies an integration of social and economy. Sustainable building does not always mean LEED building with expensive green infrastructure, in this case, design constrains more focus into how to embrace and create a socially integrated living environment for any race in New York City. Sustainable movement between economy classes and intergenerational develops a greater fairness and oppportunity in society. It does not only stimulate horizontal social mobility, but also upward-downward shift. In the future, the building tend be called the “land of opportunity�. Sustainable urbanism cannot mean green cities for the white wealthy. -Lizabeth Cohen New York Visitor per year