An Architectural Dream Against the Nightmares of Homelessness in NYC
As rates of homelessness in New York reach peak levels since the Great Depression, the city must respond quickly to alleviate the burdens of some of its most vulnerable residents. Simultaneously, the dire shortage of public services in the city creates barriers for all. With 16 restrooms per 100,000 people, and only two open 24/7, NYC ranks 93 out of 100 of the nation’s largest cities for public restrooms per capita. The “Comfort Stations”, as they are referred to, are extremely costly and time intensive to build, ranging anywhere from $3-6 million. For many, these are spaces that offer the basic daily necessities of human life and dignity, but remain out of reach in their time of need.
How can public spaces better serve the public, especially for those who lack access to private space? Hospitality Hubs offer that solution while counteracting the hostile architecture and culture that prevails across the city. They demonstrate how spaces of joy and wonder can alleviate suffering and offer a meaningful escape for people in the city to truly relieve themselves in more ways than one; merging public restrooms, showers, baths, community gardens, and rest stops into a typology that can be discovered across NY public parks. As a homage to Muslim hammams, the hubs would bring a fresh and much needed take on public rest spaces while injecting the same philosophy and intention of what these historic bathhouses represent.
The gridded layout of the city, which mirrors itself through stacked windows and straight streets, captures the unnatural and extreme privatization of land that bars people from occupying parts of the landscape. As you zoom in, this privatization manifests itself in more obvious ways - from chain-linked fences, to studded platforms, and benches with dividers. The violence of this hostile architecture makes everyone but the landlords uncomfortable (albeit disproportionately). Looking at the way green spaces challenge that rigidity, both through their natural overgrowth and accessibility to the public, the pods would find themselves in public park spaces that are sprinkled throughout the boroughs.
These sculptural structures would incite joy and wonder in the landscape and offer beauty, peace, and calm, to its users. Each designed to fit the needs of their specific landscape, the hubs would optimize water and energy flows to maximize the potentials of our public spaces and would be built out of primarily recycled materials, lowering costs both financially and environmentally. This means that more structures could be built and more public services could be rendered. The water optimization would be especially significant, as it would transform runoff water into opportunities for fresh and healthy produce, herbs, and even flowers. In this welcoming ecosystem, nearly every basic human need can be satisfied, and every human can be served.
Project designed for CORE I Studio at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation of Columbia University.