Katherine Rauner | fall 2020 HAA92R Design Speculations Seminar
This project investigates form beyond finance through the speculative re-figuration of tower housing for public good in Manhattan. The apartment tower has become a tool of dense accumulation of financial speculation bereft of its social function as anchor of residential and community life. Landowners hire developers that maximize return based on this financial speculation, with little regard for community needs. As land becomes more expensive in dense urban centers, this cycle exacerbates an imbalance of power in favor of developers’ ability to create and own, and against community members’ right to control and use the built environment around them. Design for profit and design for use become irreconcilable.
Alternative models of equity and design manifest community benefits in the pursuit of stable and affordable housing, the most pressing need in urban centers. New large-scale typologies can center these benefits to reintegrate a siloed tower with the urban fabric and capture ancillary operations of city living, without the isolation of exclusivity and unaffordability.
The section diagram captures the density demanded by high land prices in New York City, while simultaneously highlighting unique formulations driven by operations of the resident and visiting agents. Through exploration of the ground plane, interior partition, circulatory access, and frontages, the section performs as a test of the refiguration of the rigid apartment tower.
