Evaluating Cross-Cultural Courtyard Housing for Social Well-Being in Manhattan, New York

Project Narrative

My childhood in Bangladesh inspired me to create a housing community. People avoided community spaces and lived alone in my neighborhood. Housing impacts urban life's material and immaterial components, hence it is crucial to the quality of life. My project site is East Harlem River Houses in Manhattan, New York from the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). The main intention of the project was to design an urban platform inside the existing housing masterplan to involve the public in many activities with the community facilities and make life inside the housing. Another invention was to design a housing block on the east side that incorporates multilevel courtyard spaces to invite residents into those open spaces and the large courtyard creates a hierarchy with different sizes. The urban spaces create place-making in different ways such as- basketball courts, evolution plazas, cultural event spaces, sculpture gardens, libraries, and art galleries. The new housing block includes different sizes of dwelling units, which resemble the previous housing units. In order to encourage people to venture outside of their homes and interact in public places, the housing concept was created with an urban grid, open spaces, roadways, and connectivity with the internal common spaces.

                                           

Project Details

Submission Category

Landscape Architecture & Community Planning - Planning & Analysis Projects

Date of Completion

December, 2022