Cities have gotten excellent at stacking individuals on high of one another and really unhealthy at getting these individuals to really work together. Excessive density housing solves an actual property drawback whereas quietly making a social one, isolating seniors on one ground and younger households on one other with nothing however an elevator connecting them. Architect Yi Lu checked out this fragmentation and requested what it will take to reverse it with out bulldozing the buildings already holding tens of millions of individuals. Her reply, submitted to the A’ Design Award, treats an growing old superblock not as a legal responsibility however as uncooked materials for a brand new type of social infrastructure. It’s formidable, somewhat sculptural, and grounded in one thing most housing renewal proposals ignore fully.
The undertaking, titled The Intergenerational Commons, targets Stuyvesant City, New York Metropolis’s large postwar housing growth, as its take a look at case. Lu’s proposal retains roughly 75 to 85 % of the present ground space as housing whereas changing the remainder right into a revitalized podium, rooftop kindergartens, and a community of terraces threading by way of the brick shell. The renderings have an odd, compelling silhouette to them, cylindrical brick towers twisting up previous staggered ground plates, like Michel de Klerk received handed Frank Gehry’s sketchbook. A horizontal neighborhood backbone prompts road stage life, whereas stairs, lifts, and terraces sew the flooring collectively into what Lu describes as a steady social panorama. The end result appears to be like sculptural from the skin and feels intentional from inside, which is a more durable steadiness to strike than both high quality by itself.
Designer: Yi Lu
Stuyvesant City was constructed as postwar effectivity housing, rows of close to an identical brick towers designed to maneuver individuals by way of the town’s housing scarcity as quick as potential. That effectivity got here at the price of any actual social texture, and a long time later the superblock reads as useful however flat, a spot individuals reside somewhat than a spot individuals encounter one another. Lu’s retrofit doesn’t struggle that brick language a lot as bend it, pulling curved, tower-like volumes out of the present grid and letting them collide at odd angles. Load-bearing metal reinforcement and reversible insertions permit the brand new geometry to take a seat on high of the previous construction with out gutting it. The brick stays, however its logic adjustments fully, from repetition to rupture.
A standardized package of elements, constructed round 3,600 millimeter modular bays and light-weight metal framing, lets building occur in phases with out displacing present residents, a constraint that kills most formidable renewal proposals earlier than they depart the web page. Bolt on terraces lengthen outward from the present brick shell, including outside area that the unique superblock by no means had. A 1,200 sq. meter neighborhood hub anchors road stage exercise, whereas stacked shared terraces and a 300 millimeter inexperienced roof system carry that social infrastructure upward by way of the constructing. None of it requires the wholesale demolition that often accompanies massive scale housing renewal.
The attention-grabbing half is how Lu orchestrates ‘intergenerational’ overlapping zones, connecting seniors and kids somewhat than the extra widespread technique of designating separate zones for every. Rooftop kindergartens sit shut sufficient to senior studying areas on the revitalized podium that casual encounters occur with out anybody having to schedule them. Interplay stays non-obligatory all through, preserving privateness for residents who need it whereas making mutual assist obtainable for individuals who don’t. That flexibility separates the proposal from the well-meaning however inflexible intergenerational housing fashions that got here earlier than it. Whether or not a undertaking this structurally formidable ever will get constructed at Stuyvesant City is a separate query from whether or not it ought to, and Lu’s entry makes a genuinely compelling case for the second.
