ning wang reimagines anachronistic urban islands of new york city

titled ‘soundscape’, this project by ning-wang focuses on new york housing developments as urban typologies that have lost their ideal conditions for living. more specifically, the study looks at infrastructures on, along and under the trans-manhattan expressway in hudson heights as a collection of anachronistic urban islands that block the continuity of the city. indeed, they’ve been stigmatized to the point of being widely unaccepted by the neighbors. however, within the context of fast-paced developing urbanism, it appears to be full of potential, asking for a second chance to find a pertinent role in the urban scene. 

architectural elements respond to sound

ning wang has highlighted noise as the main negative characteristic of this project and manipulated it with architectural elements, thus pushing the problematic conditions further into urban renewal process. this approach allows noise and space to be both utilized to explore existing typologies that could host new residential opportunities and other public or private programs. ‘design operations such as re-programming, re-densifying, reconfiguring etc. will be the tools to recycle these city fragments and convert them into pieces of sufficient scale to re-imagine the system of centers of gravity of new york,’ elaborates wang. 

architectural elements respond to sound

disco/club

market

office

park

residence 1

residence 2

running track/museum

silence sky park

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: lea zeitoun | designboom