Atlantic Yards Hotel

2009 Fall Semester

Professor Catherine Ingraham

Mixed-use hotel situated adjacent to the controversial Brooklyn Atlantic Yards development project and NJ Nets basketball arena. 

Situated next to the forthcoming New Jersey Nets Basketball Arena The semester long project reexamined the initially robust proposal by Frank Ghery.  Examination of the drastic value engineering modifications to the once approved scheme led me to contemplate the economy’s cyclical nature in relation to architecture. Posing for me the question of responsiveness and responsibility. 

The hotel hierarchy is also clear in terms of altitude, view quality and type of space; the democratic aspect would be the lobby or the hallway which remains uniform. The Stadium focus is inward while hotel focus is out toward the surrounding context, even in an atrium hotel typology this remains true. 

Changing Economies call for a new use of architecture, one of adaptability. The diverse vibrant proposal fades away in light of the current economy. Condensed to simply the New Jersey Nets Arena. A venue that must act as a driver for the surrounding commercial context. The social divide of the stadium is clearly expressed in terms of hierarchy of price and proximity but also has a democratic notion of ‘theatre in the round’ having equally spaced seats

The site is a foreign transplant, a connection hub to various points in the city. Connection to the LIRR makes it possible for the site to be theoretically closer and more accessible to the neighboring Giants/Jets/Mets/Yankees Stadium, and Madison Square Garden. This creates a stadium network.  The hotel rooms at times can disappear to these other places to accommodate vacancy levels

So theoretically the hotel can be more than one place at once as well as collapse the space between these nodes. The hotel room follows the tourist on his/her trip renting the room not only by night but by mile. Hotel cleaning and renovation can occur by a container by container basis. Containers can be gutted and refitted easily. Materials can begin to decay or demonstrate wear and use assigning a newness value.   Containers can be branded in a billboard type fashion to add economic revenue similar to a pixel. Or demonstrate where the container has been like a passport stamp.