URBAN DESIGN STUDIO/ FALL - 95
PROBES
HARLEM
Kuang-Chein Bee
K.C. Bee notes by Grahame Shane.
K.C. presented one of the few projects who concept was large enough to
register at all scales of the city.
He proposed to use the 150' set back
mandated by the E.P.A. on either side of the Park Avenue MTA line as a
linear park (except at 125 St. where he retained existing historic
buildings).
He grouped three block areas into superblock linear areas
along the n-s axis, allowing different functions in the three
superblocks of the new park. Along the edge of the park he proposed new
infill housing of the traditional row house type oriented to the side
streets, to avoid the noise of the train.
On the park end of these
blocks were positioned special housing units facing away from the
tracks, with large electronic screens facing the tracks. K.C. imagined
these screens to full of electronic messages to passing commuters, much
as the existing buildings around 125 St. have been covered with graffiti
about the housing conditions by tenants using cardboard signs.
The park
itself had a varied program, with street vendors under its arches at
either end, community gardens, car repair areas and spaces for mobile
exhibitions, as well as the shells of some abandoned buildings
transformed into Matta-Clark like sculpture playgrounds.
In the central
section K.C. proposed a Pat Johansen like garden mini-mountain, with
community uses below.
Final Jurors; Irena Latek, Christine Boyer, Marissa Oliver, Mark Robbins, Lauren Otis, Michael Webb, Michael Manfredi, James Sanders, Joan Ockman, Andrea Kahn.
Irena Latek found K.C.'s project very strong, bringing a new quality to
something that was already there.
By changing the grid slightly K.C.
created a major urban figure - a clear composition.
Mark Robbins thought
it was odd that the housing turned its short side to the park, but liked
the park.
Andrea Kahn felt that the project was formally strong but
needed to be tested - it was an idea which had been tried on the Lower
East Side with mixed results.
Mike Webb liked the perspective drawings
of the park but worried that the electronic billboards on the ends of
the blocks could function to hide Harlem from commuters (K.C. explained
about the existing signs at 125 St. station and his Jenny Holtzer
ideas).
Mike also discussed the three dimensional nature of the park,
leading Christine Boyer to comment on the difficult relationship between
computer graphics and the representation of non-orthogonal
nature/contour).