Zuz 602 Hunts Point Project text

Zuz 602 Hunts Point Project text This project, a Hunts Point station for the proposed Outerboro Connector (OX) line, emphasizes the region’s charismatic industrial character while creating humane connections to the interior residential enclave. At the scale of the peninsula, we propose a bike loop connecting the station with a network of industrial parking lots, figuring them as a city gallery. New mixed-use development buffers the industrial and the residential zones. The immediate context of the station is dominated by the Bruckner Expressway, a 500-foot-wide scar cutting off Hunts Point from the Bronx and creating acutely unhealthy air quality. At-grade lanes are channelized in a tunnel, while a continuous wall of buildings and vegetated lattices contain the elevated freeway. Air-purifying structures atop the buildings mitigate pollution from the freeway while providing visual interest. Our public realm strategy transforms the Bruckner from a barrier into a meeting place. To the north, a commercially-oriented plaza and entrance to the existing 6 train station is linked to a youth sports area under the freeway, as well as a market and art gallery leading to the OX station. An outdoor living room with spaces for performance and gathering invoke typologies which respond to the house stoops along the residential edge to the south.

150=word description

Tri -> OuterBoro Connector      OX

What is this project about?     Connection and Air Purificaiton. 

    Creating a humane scale of infrastructure. 

The peninsula scale is about creating a humane connection between a residential island and Hunt’s Point at large, which has a strongly industrial character. Preserving industrial character, while emphasizing its charismatic aspects and attenuating its less charasmatic ones. We do this by creating air purifiers and a network of charismatic parking lots connected by a bike loop that connects them into a city gallery. Creating a new kind of development at the intersection of the industrial and the residential zones that encourages a mixed-use approach while creating a buffer for the industrial zone. 

We realize it’s hard to make this happen and have an impact without addressing the bruckner expressway, which is also where Metro North and OX come in. In the corridor, we are dealing with the fact that it’s really unhealthy to live within a mile, and acutely unhealthy to live within 500 feet of a freeway. The Bruckner is such a big scar in the community fabric. We find that the Bruckner Expy itself causes air problems, but the eight lanes of traffic at grade are the real problem for connectivity. We channelize those lines in a tunnel. 

We break down the scale of that 500-foot rift by creating a new kind of development along the Brtuckner which provides air purification and breaking down the scale, providing interest, visual attraction. It makes the Brucker an interesting meeting place instead of a gap. We program it to make it exciting and interesting. The buffer buildings create a continuous wall which purifies with plants and air-purifying structures, as well as facades which contain the freeway exhaust. 

We had multiple characters of public spaces. Near Southern Bvld, an active commercial corridor, we add development with new retail and a plaza with botanic interest. Increased air rights for the surrounding anchor development as an incetive for those builders to also build cleaning towers, creating a positive feedback loop to make it a more humane space. 

Our public realm strategy transitions from a commercially-oriented plaza to an area with a youth sports area under the Bruckner linked to a new community development, a market and art gallery that leads to the OX station. As you pass to hunt’s point, we have an area we think of as an outdoor living room with spaces for performance, picnic tables for gatherings, and typologies that respond to the house stoops along the residential edge.