Design II / Fall 2022
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Astor Place, New York City
Professor Nima Javidi
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This concept for Astor place at the heart of the East Village proposes a volumetric boolean between a public promenade and private short-stay rooms. 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 to an interior seam. 

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.
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Rooms acting as infilled poche are discretized by a vertical seam, resulting in a public configuration and private hotel that are programmatically separated yet spatially interlocked. The seam also confines a circulation ramp of the promenade to produce folds, intersections and particular connection moments. A curved facade creates visual connection to Cooper Square, and accentuates the entrance condition sloping into the building.

Pictured include physical models of this project displayed at the End of Year Show at The Cooper Union. On top is a massing study model including structure and floor plates, below is an negative sectional model cut on a corner to reveal the complexities of interior organizations.