A Two-Week Core I Project at Colombia GSAPP

Elicit; obtain, draw out, extract, bring out, evoke, call forth, bring forth, induce, prompt, generate, engender, trigger, provoke; 

Scaffolding; a system of raised frameworks, a raised platform or stage for exhibiting spectacles, seating spectators, etc.

On the corner of 14th Street and 1st Avenue there is an inverted city corner. As opposed to other corners in the city, this corner was missing a volume of space. 

The corner property is a housing development building of Stuyvesant Town. 
The empty corner made by the private property lines and inverted volume is landscaped, but blocked off by fences, implying that a person is not allowed to go in there. 

This type of inversion of space fascinated me, where a space is created, and then specifically made so that the pubic is not allowed to be in.  

In the analytic site analysis drawing lead to isolating similar conditions in the immediate area. Determining factors are spaces and dimensions that suggest human habitation but are unacceptable to go. The isolated elements in the site drawing are a dumpster, HVAC systems, the underground train track, and scaffolding. 

These spaces usually perform a valuable function and are located next to public spaces of circulation.  The public location of these restricted areas suggest that they are almost on display. 

Appropriating the dimensions and idea of scaffolding as a platform for access and in a larger sense display, I started articulating forms along the edges of the building that encourage habitation but are reserved for Illicit activity thus eliciting the illicit.  

The forms take on ranges of very solid forms to very open  “framework” forms. The circulation is accomplished by a ventilation-like tube that threads the forms loosely together, and act as the flexible mechanism through which passersby and perpetrators alike intermix and arrive at platforms.

Taking the notion of “inversion” as the basis for “hinging “- use is hinged and reflected from regular to irregular, legal to illegal, safe to dangerous, acceptable to unacceptable. 

The other level of this project is to playfully celebrate illicit activity by putting it on display through scaffolding and dimensional relationships.