HATCH

New York City, New York // Columbia University, GSAPP // Year 1, Semester 1 // 2015 // Instructor: Gerald Bodziak

The New York City corner of 14th Street and Broadway plays host to a variety of situations. One end is occupied by the employees of Manhattan, moving linearly across the sidewalks along the banks of buildings. The other corner, however, is the expansive Union Square Park, where people take photographs, eat meals, and relax. The contrast between the two programs at such close proximity to each other; the rigid and the fluid; begs the question of whether they can be synthesized to create a more dynamic corner for the inhabitants of the space. The ‘Hatch’ incorporates this synthesis on the SW corner of 14th Street and Broadway, which is occupied by a large building, with the first 5 floors of unoccupied retail space. The concept revolves around pushing this dividing facade back, and providing the space to the public and creating a more dynamic space within the corner. 

During the day, the device hinges and opens to the surroundings, inviting pedestrians in by creating public spaces which are both, open to the elements and also protected (Operation One). The dividing facade can be ‘pushed’ down by occupants to create numerous platforms and terraces that extend the habitable spaces within which can then be used. These spaces are connected through vertical and horizontal elements to create circulation through the device. At night, the device folds back and closes itself off from the public, creating private programmable spaces in which the dwellers can go about their routines undisturbed by the pedestrians and surroundings (Operation Two). Each space has small openings to allow for some light penetration, creating ‘moments’ of light and elemental exposure within the space around which programs can be created. These private spaces can be occupied both inside and along the roofs, and are all connected by an ant-farm inspired circulative concept. 

Through these movements, the device utilizes unprogrammed space and provides the public with areas that they can define themselves, breaking the rigidity of the 14th Street and Broadway corner and flipping the dynamic nature of the opposite park to vertical dimensions. The occupants can not only move horizontally across the spaces, but also up and down the entire facade, almost literally taking the floor plan and flipping it on its side. In a modern city such as New York, where requires perpetual growth but has limited unoccupied areas to build on today, the concept of creating additional programmable spaces along the vertical facades could prove to be invaluable.