Growing Communities
An expandable community megastructure fed by scattered greenhouse nuclei.
- Location
- Arverne Blvd & Beach 62nd St, Arverne NY
- Coordinates
- 40.592°N 73.792°W
- Category
- Architecture
Lucien Mount, Oriol Grana Garriga · Y3/SP (Archived) · Prof. Giuliano Fiorenzoli
AN ADAPTABLE MEGASTRUCTURE
A community center built to grow.
Growing Communities addresses the challenge of designing a community center through an adaptable megastructure. Modules aggregate to create whatever programming the community needs over time.
The materials are chosen for cost, durability, and availability: a low-cost, readily constructible steel and CLT frame. The modularity lets the structure accelerate and decelerate with community usage.
DECENTRALIZED NUCLEI
Greenhouses feed the site.
A series of greenhouses act as the main mechanism for proliferation, decentralized nuclei that feed the surrounding buildings. Equipped with mechanical and plumbing systems routed throughout, they let the project mushroom out without continually adding new MEP.
Their fundamental job is growing healthy saplings. Once mature, the saplings move from the greenhouse interior into the neighboring gardens placed in adjacency to each nucleus.
INSIDE / OUTSIDE
The greenhouse as cornerstone.
The greenhouse is the visual cornerstone of the project. Outside it provides coves for repose; inside it supplies MEP and vegetation for the communal garden. Moving through the building, curated views orient you in space.
THE MODEL
Steel and CLT, built to expand.
The physical model reads the frame directly: light CLT members and steel joints, picked out in red, holding the vaulted greenhouse bays. It is a kit that can be added to as the community grows.