COMMUNE-ISM
Communal living design proposal for Time Out New York: Apartments Issue May 2007

Current economic pressures necessitate living in the city in a new way with unique domestic arrangements.  Mature shared-living configurations, adapted and modified from post-graduate apartment shares offer more square footage with better amenities, all with the built-in advantage of shared expenses.

Taking an existing artist’s warehouse building in Greenpoint, the idea is to create a new urban commune of four distinct domestic groups, two families with children and two couples, one unrelated.  The street level, which opens onto the sidewalk, becomes an extension of the street, the “common”, complete with café, theater, laundromat, lounge/yoga, playground, swimming pool and park.  This level is open completely from the front sidewalk (street) to the rear garden (park) in the back.   Domestic communal storage is treated like multiple shop windows along the entire west length of the “common”.

On the second story above, wood-clad pre-fab “cabins” are the bedroom suites for each family, couple or single adult.  There are four different size cabins, each distinguished by a different species of wood; walnut, beech, poplar and cherry. Inside are beds, baths, wardrobes and simple pantries.  Like in an efficiency hotel, one only sleeps and bathes in one’s room.  All other domestic functions occur below on the shared public “common”.  The “cabins” act as room size skylights, filtering light from the roof down to the “common” level below.

An essential component of the design is the maximizing of the public amenities that is afforded by the minimizing of the private bedroom “cabins”.  That and the built-in babysitting capabilities of the arrangement.