June 5th through 22nd 2014

The Warehouse Gallery

THE PROJECTS

623 Bergen Street Brooklyn, NY 11238

oUR SPONSORS

Matthias Altwicker and Farzana Gandhi

FLEXIBLE CITY


In a climate shaped by rapid economic turnover, ubiquitous high-rise, high-density, superblock developments fail to acknowledge change over time: a change in use, a change in infrastructural needs, and a change in built context and environment. This alternative proposal for Atlantic Yards embraces the developer’s outsized program as a challenge to offer a new model for urban development at this scale - one that is programmatically, infrastructurally, and contextually flexible to the forces that define its long-standing value. Value is defined by both its relevance in the community as well as its resulting profitability. Flexibility is achieved through a complete separation of inhabitable volume and infrastructure. 

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​Through this separation, each element is allowed to operate at full potential. Various re-use scenarios and contextual relationships can be optimized while also offering new typologies and scales of open space. Volumes move freely across the site and plug into its infrastructural wrapper at core locations. 8 story volumes, constructed as 4 double height floors, can be programmed with housing, commercial, or manufacturing space. Single story plates lie above and below each program volume and double as public indoor / outdoor space and green zones. The potential misalignments between volumes  effectively doubles the square footage for both green infrastructure and public space.