Design II / Fall 2022
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Astor Place, New York City
Professor Nima Javidi
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Exquisite Corpse proposes a volumetric intersection between a public promenade and private short-stay rooms at Astor Place in the heart of the East Village. The promenade seamlessly attaches the subway entrance, Astor Place Plaza, an ascending public staircase, a bathhouse and an exhibition hall into a malleable figure inside a rigid shell, only revealing its hinted peculiarities at moments on the facade. Beginning with a collage-montage of public voids within the building envelope mass, the design evolved through sculpting the connected voids as a figure absorbing the roles of entrance, circulation, communal space skylight. Rooms acting as infilled poche are discretized by a vertical seam, resulting in public amenities and a private hotel, programmatically separated yet spatially interlocked. The seam also confines a circulation ramp of the promenade to produce folds, intersections and unique connection moments. A curved facade creates visual connection to Cooper Square, and accentuates the entrance condition sloping into the building.