Innovation & Delight
Dolly Yarur and Steven Haardt; New York, New York, USA
[Registration #1452747]


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The project looks at universal design, preservation, site, and accessibility because of the site's programmatic potential, the carcass of the hospital and prison, and its elongated spine. The initial design approach is the integration of ramps allowing the site to open, fold, and vary in pitch to define space. The ruin sits centralized between rising and falling ramps. It becomes the origin, a viewport from Queens to Manhattan. The ramps move through the ruin transforming their width and depth to create volume.  They are inspired by the patterning technique, and the method of construction of the granite walls of the ruin. This vertical pattern begins to transform its construction in the form of ramps, onto the horizontal plane of the site. Thus establishing a new pattern (along x-axis) in conversation with the existing (along y-axis). From the ruin, rails extract and trace the programmatic spaces weaving in and out to support. Each rail is integrated from the interior to exterior. Stitching the movement through. For example, the bar in a dance studio begins along the interior and leads to the exterior and back into the theater to become a balcony rail. But the approach is not merely about tracing the site or bending the landscape, it also takes into account the historical role of the hospital and the prison, by releasing the social and economic collapse and forming a space to celebrate the performing arts.

the crash of ruin fitfully resounds - William Wordsworth

forelegs and arms raised by ramps

disappearing reappearing into the origin.
falling down getting up passed on under and within

ruins is the origin
everything must pass through the ruin

ramps laid like stone

running the length, tracing a line, creating a field.