GAUD Pratt | Master of Science, Architecture, and Urban Design 

Director: Architect David Ruy

 

Walking in Newtown Creek (NYC) is like moving through a forgotten city, damaged, polluted, scary, and weird. If this is urban failure, it is nonetheless a fascinating failure. In this project, I want to work with the objects that are already there. However, I want to re-contextualize these abandoned objects by placing new objects into them. Instead of erasing the context in the name of reclamation and redevelopment I want to alter its meaning a little bit at a time. 

 

The project is divided into two stages, a first, transition stage and a second more permanent stage.

 

Fetishizing the rough urban scene certainly has its ironies. However, it is a better alternative to either tabula rasa erasure or cliched greening strategies. I want to assert that the abandoned urban landscape now has its own history and its own artifacts that should be re-contextualized through new urban relationships. 

 

Project:     Alternative Strategic plan for urban planing

Program:  Culture, Commercial, & Infrastructure

Location:  Newtown Creek, Brooklyn, New York.