MENDING FRACTURES: Scales of Social Connectivity
This South Bronx site has a history of fractures. In 1956, the Major Deegan Expressway was extended directly through open green space and pedestrian walkways, creating a precarious infrastructural network that remains today. The surrounding community itself has had a difficult relationship to ownership of its land and housing; the South Bronx has been home to many grassroots organizations that have over the past few decades needed to advocate for themselves, particularly the Latinx and Black communities.
The project aims to create connections at multiple scales through affordable and collective housing. At an urban scale, the housing collective connects to La Finca Del Sur community garden to expand their footprint, programming, and outreach as well as reconnect pedestrian access across the Major Deegan.
At the unit scale, the project eliminates traditional corridors by introducing the joint: a central form of vertical programming and circulation that serves as residential egress while encouraging overlaps of intimate interactions. Through alternative systems of collective land ownership, long-term affordability and stability allows South Bronx residents to connect to their neighborhood.
Program | Affordable Housing
Site | Mott Haven, South Bronx, NYC
Category | Academic [GSAPP, Fall 2022]
Critic | Christopher Leong (Leong Leong)
Collaborator | Erisa Nakamura
1’=1/4” building chunk model
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