SUNSET GATEWAY
Project Site: Sunset Park, Brooklyn |2021
Core IV Studio | Critic: Anthony Acciavatti
Team: Christina Zhang + Abraham Mora-Valle
The studio conceptualizes a new urban typology that brings together social, recreational and educational services with an expanded notion of domestic space in Brooklyn, New York City.
The project is located in District 15, a district with the largest number of children in Brooklyn. Sunset Gateway, sitting the edge of the Sunset Park neighborhood in Brooklyn, connects the community and local schools to the waterfront park while serving as an opportunity to hallucinate on new educational models for living and learning: it includes 100 mixed-rate housing units, 40 affordable housing units for local public school teachers and 80 student dorms.
Sunset Park neighborhood is one of the lowest income communities in District 15. There are two public schools facing the same issues that many NYC public schools face: high housing insecurity and low graduation rates.
We propose to tap into the development rights that schools have to incorporate the school community in the planning process. The map of D15 show an inventory of all the available FAR of the public schools in D15: 8 million sqft.
Our selected site is in an industrial manufacturing zone with an FAR of 2, we will collect the transferable development rights to increase our FAR and incorporate a student boarding program and a teachers’ residency in our mixed-use building which is situated in a burgeoning waterfront community.
Our floor area = current development rights on the site + those from the two schools + bonus 2 FAR for providing public amenities on the ground floor.
Section across the long atrium: All of our public amenities are located on the ground floor and the north side of the building, freeing up the south and west sides of our building to all the dwelling units.
The floor plans are designed around two central atriums that provide more light, air and circulation around the entire building. The Pushing and pulling of the public amenity volumes create a dynamic spatial condition in the atriums.
On the ground floor, all public amenities are expressed along the sidewalk. The east entrance is a protected entrance for students to enter their boarding school community on the floors above. The public main entrance invites visitors to see through the entire building through both atriums: a community gallery to the left, and an interior garden straight ahead.
Second and third floor: The east side provides the boarding school experience for the local public school students. Sleeping quarters are arranged along the south side, while spaces along the atrium (hallways, study library, kitchen and bathhouse) become a large communal living room for the students.
Longitudinal section across the atrium carrying the public realm from the ground level to the sky.
Fourth and fifth floor: Mixed-use housing units with balconies open to the larger New York City market. The north side offers more recreational amenities that run through both floors, offering court stands and an energetic sectional relationship with the walkways around the atrium.
Sixth and seventh floor: Instead of recreational amenities, the north side provides offices for people living in this community to open up medical and legal clinics that can also serve the Sunset Park community. A translucent layer serves as a buffer between the public and residential components of the program.
With this new model of learning and living, Sunset Gateway hopes to reconnect the communities separated by the expressway, and reimagine a reunited Sunset Park. With new access and motive, Sunset Gateway will usher community members to the waterfront. Here, home is but a stroll to the water. Open to students, families, and communities willing to take that first step.