PARKING LOT PERFORMANCE ARTS CENTER

Date: 2014-04-01

Client:

Program: Parking, Performing Arts, Gallery

Team: OCX Luke Willis, Esin Erez, and Claudia

Location: New York, NY, USA

Area:

Status: Competition

The PARKING LOT PERFORMANCE ARTS CENTER re-imagines what a parking structure can be. Here we have combined it with a performing arts center and a visual arts gallery, so that during the parking off hours the space is open for public use. Our intention was to vertically extend the urban street culture into a Parking

CONTEXT

Located at the juncture of Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen, and Hudson Yards, a Performance Arts Center is chosen as the additional program for the site. A brick volume hosts a theater, gallery, and a training school evocative of the reused warehouse spaces unique to the history of this area.

By utilizing the ramping floor plates for the parking, the building is vertically split, while seamlessly connected to the urban streets. The continuity draws in street elements such as vegetation, pedestrians, and vehicles, but also the culture that is so unique to New York City.

Street artists, performers, musicians and vendors are invited to set shop during parking off hours, when the spiral ramp is transformed into an arena and the switchback ramps into amphitheaters.

The public interface brings life to the otherwise lifeless parking space, and the Performing arts center is invigorated by the ever changing street life of New York City.

The public interface brings life to the otherwise lifeless parking space, and the Performing arts center is invigorated by the ever changing street life of New York City.