OTHERNESS


Location: Jamaica Bay, New York
Program: Ecological Community
Category: Academic, Spring 2015, Harvard GSD
Collaborator: Ambrose Luk
Instructor: Chris Reed 

Islands in New York City have historically been used for alternative, illicit, or secluding activities.
Jamaica Bay and Broad Channel island particularly used to be the center of the alcohol trade during prohibition. Because of its remoteness, isolation, and fog-prone environment, many rum-runners called the island home. Embracing the ephemeral and atmospheric qualities of fog as well as the island's location within the bay, Otherness, takes advantage of pre-conditions to establish a fog-facilitating landform in key locations throughout the bay. Infrastructural and urban elements are then deployed into this fog-scape in order to grant access and eventually occupation. The type of urbanism that is established borrows from the language of the illicit and creates different typologies of habitation such as drifting, floating, tethering, steaming, and viewing. Fog becomes the catalyst for a switch between a normative city and an illicit one.

Otherness takes advantage of pre-conditions to establish a fog-facilitating landform in key locations throughout the bay.






















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