About All Projects
ECHO
Museum/Residential 
Brooklyn, New York
Fall 2024 Option Studio
Advised by Emma Silverblatt and Adam Frampton
Partner project with Lydia Knecht





Bushwick, New York has shown a growing emphasis and increasing population of its artist community. Additionally, current housing prices are rising in Bushwick; housing availability issues have arisen as result of significant growth in luxury apartment complexes (in addition to decreasing people per household). These factors generated a design encouraging building flexibility.

Studying historical documentation of the site, we noted that the current lot originally was home to a large industrial building, a mirror of the existing building to the north. The design begins with reconstruction of the historical building as a doubling of what exists north of the site. Thus, creating a twin that appears the same as the old building but is today an entirely new and innovative in its conception and internal organization. How can the site anticipate change whilst preserving parts of its past, and even future? The answers to this question are through two typologies: housing and museum.

Initially, the space will house artists along with their studios and workspaces. Its future condition consists of artifacts from artists who have moved away. A large central courtyard provides natural light for these workspaces, eventually translated into museum infill. The tool for change is a corbel concrete column, taken from precedent studies of Otto Steidle’s Genterstrasse. These allow floors to move sectionally. A gantry crane not only changes the layout of objects in the building, but also is a way for the building itself to physically change in section.

Placement of columns determines enfilade organization in plan. Rigid artifacts like plumbing and HVAC systems live in between each column, establishing an enfilade condition. This preserves the spatial organization of a typical museum while allowing for open space among studios. Occupants therefore can determine spatial organization while still establishing the dimensions of the typologies listed above.