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Reclaiming the Common

Upper West Side, New York
Fall 2018, Columbia GSAPP

Critic: Anna Puigjaner, MAIO

Reclaiming the Common is an exploration in reclaiming non-utilized public space and “the common” as a place to foster integration between two adjacent, but separate, communities on two scales. While the residents of the Amsterdam Houses and their neighbors are different in racial makeup and economic wealth, commonalities in age offer an opportunity to bridge the divide. In order to achieve this reality, the following 3 strategies were utilized: redefinition at the edge condition of the site and how it interacts with the outside environment, re-programming the interior voids as community-oriented public space, and improving vertical circulation with a series of sky bridges and terraces that reclaim the common for the residents of the Amsterdam Houses.

The Amsterdam Houses is a ‘Tower in the Park’ public affordable housing project in the Upper West Side of New York City. Once a successful experiment in integration, decades of exponential rising rent and gentrification has given no choice for many of the residents and their descendents to stay put in decaying facilities. As a ‘Naturally Occurring Retirement Community’, the Amsterdam Houses have access to funding for services like health screenings, bilingual social work assistance, and benefit entitlements. However, the current facilities are falling apart and carry a stigma which is driving down attendance. Additionally, fencing and a large retaining wall at the perimeter present a physical barrier between residents and their designated public space, and between the Amsterdam Houses and the outside community.

With the addition of retail spaces for lease within the exterior-facing voids along the outer sidewalk edge, a redistribution of existing social services and amenities within the interior-facing facades, and a series of terraces and balconies to connect residents to an adjacent tower, the residents of the Amsterdam Houses convert valuable exterior void space to capital, and reclaim the interior and vertical voids of the site as common space to foster integration and a stronger community.

Diagrammatic site plan, the void spaces between NYCHA towers