JUSTIN BANDA

At the edge of Gowanus we developed the transit station at 9th/Smith to support the nearby transit-oriented development just north, while also developing the transit station itself as a high-end commercial center to draw business from Manhattan. The east edge of this area continues the reconstruction of the IBZ by seeding tower residential with high-density industrial, and the southern tip functions as a new campus for the Brooklyn-based Metro Tech university.

The resulting architectural composition is my attempt at creating layers of information filtered through chaos. By drawing from the inhumanity and violence of the neighborhood’s history as well as the dissonant music of Kanye himself, I attempted to form a sterile framing device— in this case, the resulting obelisk— to process this new landmark and point of reference. From a design standpoint, the building attempts to process multiple nodes and touchstones to form a machine understanding, wrapped around a core of vulnerability.

Noted on the graphic to the right is the project area, which includes the extents of Gowanus and a small portion of Red Hook in the southwest. Note that the existing lots bordering the Canal were rezoned in the 1940s and 50s to break the residential fabric to make way for indsutry. After the industry’s exodus, the contaminated canal was left behind, creating vast swaths of non- or under-utilized lots.

At the Head of the Canal we created a celebratory water feature bounded by open plazas to commemorate the historic pump station, and to expand the park to better connect to the water. This area is the natural ending of a path of public space along the canal, with close proximity to the highest existing residential density of Gowanus in the public housing towers.