Interstitial Space

The site study area for the studio will be the interstitial spaces of New York City\’s financial district. There are many problems and opportunities in the financial district involving open space, pedestrian connections, parks, memorials, waterfront access as well as those related to rebuilding the World Trade Center site, Interstitial spaces are difficult design problems and particularly challenging in densely built urban areas. The studio will look at spaces that are normally overlooked or underutilized. The focus will be on intervening spaces; the relatively small and narrow areas that occur between other things. Interstitial spaces occur in diverse situations and contexts. Some respond to unusual or particular program conditions, many are linear and involve connections and linkages, while others are left over bits and pieces. Often these spaces occupy the margins of infrastructure or are part of building structures. Interstitial spaces may be vertical as well as horizontal, autonomous as well as highly integrated. We will be looking at poorly designed spaces, such as \”bonus plazas\”, existing undesigned spaces and the potential for creating new spaces. We will address social factors and environmental conditions as well as design concerns. A preoccupation of the studio will be with the medium of urban landscape and particularly issues of concept, materiality and fabrication.Studio methodology will be organized around two exercises: \”Temporary\” addressing provisional interventions, and \”Not Temporary\”, focusing on developing more permanent projects. The first half of the semester will be devoted to issues of site representation and provisional landscape proposals. The second half will draw from the first to develop projects intended for permanence but maintaining the courage of the former to address content and innovative ideas. The studio will be structured as a set of related design exercises, readings, and parallel investigations to further an understanding of issues of content, representation, context, and scale.Students from all GSD programs are welcome. There will be one unfunded field trip to New York City.