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Towers in the Park / Park in the Towers
Manhattan, New York City, USA | Thesis Project, Spring 2018
Of all typologies, the Towers in the Park strategy remains one of architecture's most notorious
failures. Yet it is one of the most pervasive public housing types in the United States. Its
revitalization is key to the success of public housing programs.
In New York City, over 600,000 people live in Towers in the Park developments. Set in Manhattan, where another million residents are expected by 2040, this thesis project searches for a new means to densify the towers in the park typology while — almost contradictorily — saving the remaining park space.
In 2015, the NYC Housing Authority undertook a new initiative to densify its stock by means of an infill initiative: selling off open parcels of its tower in the park developments to luxury developers to reduce the annual deficit. Yet the towers that have been proposed by developers have done very little to remedy the difficult urban problems facing these sites.
In opposition, this thesis project seeks a better strategy for the coexistence of high density housing and green space. I have chosen the Alfred E. Smith Houses, adjacent Brooklyn Bridge near Lower East Side, as the site for this project, as it has the highest land value of all NYCHA sites and has been officially selected as the first to be densified.
The existing Smith Tower buildings do not take advantage of their park setting: they are like objects placed on site completely indifferent to its unique conditions. This project disrupts the typical tower typology, which often focuses on towers as objects. Instead, new buildings are added next to existing ones, creating a small network of buildings. Each small network of apartment buildings is then draped with an ETFE facade, creating semi-indoor spaces between the buildings that are open to the public.
In doing so, the strategy simultaneously densifies the site and connects the buildings to the surrounding landscape. These new semi-indoor spaces serve as extensions of the surrounding park spaces, creating many winter gardens across the site. This type of public space does not really fall into any current typology - not quite a winter garden, atrium, interior courtyard, or public park - but will create an entirely new type of public space.
This project densifies the site in three phases. First, much of the new housing is created by extending different wings of the dogbone-shaped existing towers. Previously these towers were all identical to one another. In adding new wings to the towers, each will become unique and morphed to the particular conditions of the surrounding site. The new wings also create relationships between one another at the urban scale, acting as frames to create distinct episodes of program across the previously monotonous site. After the existing buildings are renovated, select towers on the northern edge of the site will be replaced with new construction that will better serve as a gateway to the park, contribute to the livelihood of the surrounding streets, and add many new units.
Although towers in the park are largely characterized by brick, this project will explore how
ETFE facades can both improve the performance of the buildings, transform the image of the buildings, and challenge public perceptions of the way public housing should look. The clear, permeable ETFE facades, plastic-based and low in cost compared to glass, create new opportunities to radically change the character of the stigmatized public housing sites. ETFE is the only polymer facade that allows in the full-spectrum of light, also making it well suited for indoor plants and interiorized park space.
The permeability of the facades will be explored as a means to connect the buildings with the surrounding park, but also the broader context, better connecting the vertical lifestyles to their specific sites, both socially, culturally, and ecologically.
Michael Matthews, AIA
Contact: mikedavematt (at) gmail
Resume available upon request |
Michael Matthews Studio
Full Service Licensed Architecture Firm
Registered with American Institute of Architects
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