In June of 2023, I attended Harvard Graduate School of Design’s 3-week long full-time Design Discovery Virtual program. As someone curious about pursuing an education in design and an inclination towards architecture, the program gave me the opportunity to delve deep into exploring the built environment from the lens of three different disciplines - Architecture, Landscape, and Urban Planning + Design. Led by faculty, master's, and doctoral graduates from the GSD, the program involves interaction with an extensive network of design experts serving as guest lecturers and critics. Through lectures and collaborative seminar sessions, we learned about the ideas of Publics and Sustainability through design exercises and critical discussions with participants from diverse backgrounds. Not only was I able to explore my connection to the city I live in, New York, I was also able to learn to use Rhino and create technical plans and drawings to better convey ideas.
Not so (Hell)’s Kitchen
Hell's kitchen, and New York City as a whole, faces a range of climate risks, including sea-level rise, coastal flooding, heatwaves, and extreme weather events. These threats pose significant challenges to infrastructure, public health, and the economy. Skyscrapers and concrete lined streets significantly impact the temperatures of the city and trap air and noise pollution within it's crevices.
My project exploration focuses on a solution oriented approach to expand the greenery in the city and strategies Hell's kitchen can adopt to mitigate climate change induced symptoms. Pocket parks are the lungs of the city already, and through my diagrams I aim to portray the notion of building a network of interconnected public parks linked by bridges and walkways resembling the High Line. This intricate system of connected green spaces would provide opportunities for people to stroll with their dogs, engage in outdoor play with children, cultivate crops, and take part in various outdoor pursuits.
Collage depicting vertical urban green landscape, made using axonometric projections of Hell’s Kitchen in Rhino and Photoshop. This intricate system of connected green spaces would provide opportunities for people to stroll with their dogs, engage in outdoor play with children, cultivate crops, and take part in various outdoor pursuits.
Collage depicting vertical urban green streetscapes, made using axonometric projections of Hell’s Kitchen in Rhino and Photoshop. My project is very much inspired by the high-line which is a continuous, 1.45-mile-long greenway in Chelsea featuring 500+ species of plants and trees. It is also home to a diverse suite of public programs, community and teen engagement, artwork and performances.
Collage depicting challenges faced by New York City and New Yorkers with the growing poulation and climate change. The neighborhood is home to 50,000 residents, along with a complex public transportation system and a thriving tourist economy, all struggling to coexist.
Entourage of publicly available images, and AI generated assets that collectively portray the new cityscape.
2 minute sketches showing (L-R) New vs. old, soft and hard, public vs. private, open vs. closed, movement of people, and light filling the space.