J Cameron Ringness - ETHNO/City Layers of Urban Alterity

The Unrelenting Paseo

The American City is layered in differences. Over time the
city has been shaped and reshaped by different cultures
and identities in the urban landscape. However, difference
is still consistently otherized, and ethnicity becomes excluded
by society as this other. In 2010, the Latino population
increased from 13 percent in 2000 to 16 percent of the
total population, or 51 million people.

And yet, Latinos are still particularly otherized in cities like New Orleans, where the demographics have been shifting since Katrina and the
Latino population has more than doubled in size.

Despite the city’s rich history of Latin American culture, the
populations identity is still ambiguous and mainly invisible
to society at large.On a national level, Latinos use the everyday in urban life as an arena of resistance and cultural meaning. Neighborhoods evolve over time based on hybridity, juxtaposition and improvisation; this temporal condition is visible within a 24-hour cycle in Hispanic everyday life,
where place is altered across different hours of the day,
and along different paths. Utilizing this transitional element
of Latino Urbanism and the emphasis on provisional
social space existing along lines of difference, the project
redefines building typologies to anticipate and support the
growing ethnic identity. In New Orleans, the Latino community
has specific economic, social and cultural needs, which
the city is currently lacking, thus the project seeks to address
these absences through the placemaking strategy of
layered exchanges and interwoven paths, in which the tectonics
of space respond to these paths, and a visual, as well
as a physical, exchange occurs between, city and others.

project overview | 'THE ROADMAP' | 3 eXCHANGES

project components | 'THE 24-HOUR PROGRAM'

site

The Site exists simultaneously
at the urban scale, the neighborhood and the human
scale. Its position allows for the connection
to the city as a whole, as it still represents the
passage of entry into the back of the downtown,
as well as a threshold across many neighborhoods
hor izontally. The tension between these
multiple directions is reinforced by the appendages
perpendicular to the dominant l inear
spine, l inking the Carrollton 'front porch' of the
Hispanic communi ty to the ent i re neighborhood.
The appendages reach into the adjacent blocks.
The site exists along this sequence.

the path

Along the larger proposed site, the path between the Home Depot
and the church, the intersection of N Broad and the Greenway becomes
the new place of intervention, using the space between broad
and Dorgenois St, where the church is located. Intersections define
this site, existing amoung, between and within multipe intersections.
Paths create intersections, and intersections allow for exchanges.

site plan

master plan

sections

eXCHANGE 1 | 'THE DOCKS'

The Docks follow the greenway and reflect the
industrial structures, unused loading docks, and scrap
yards that characterize the present greenway strip. This
reinterpreted marketplace merges the architecture of
loading docks, boardwalks and pavilions. The structure
is a moving machine, with controllable canopies that
open when merchants are present in one of the selling
blocks along the row of spaces. When the block is
empty the canopy collapses in. The board walk is always
open and protected by an immobile roof structure
which supports the moving mechanisms. Thus, while
the greenspace below serves as paths for pedestrians
and cyclists, the boardwalk simultaneously acts as a
path for consumers, and strollers, eventually linking to
the Tower and Central program components. Thus the
Docks are the port of entry into a sequence of multiple
exchanges, along the path of the boardwalk as well as
the overall site.

the Docks moving section

the Docks Marketplace

eXCHANGE 2 | 'The Tower'

The Tower is a device of measure and view. Along
the greenway the tower serves to position, and ground
the sequence of the path. On site, the tower has many
functions, including radio transmissions, a symbol of
the marketplace---not unlike the clock towers of traditional
market structures, a place of view and sight, as
well as an opportunity for vertical markets to occur in
relation to the adjacent urban farm .The Skin protects
the tower and users, as well as shields the produce
wash and storage station within the farm. The structure
of the tower and its skin is inspired by the radio,
and telephone edifices that mark the city.
Moreover, the Tower harks on the ancient reference to
the origin of multiple languages, the story of the Tower
of Babel. Since this narrative, the tower cannot escape
the implications of representing the clash and cooperation
of differences.

the Tower section

the Tower + Marketplace

adjacenies + time

eXHCNAGE 3 - The Nucleus

The Nucleus resides in an existing structure
on the site. The former industrial laundry space is
composed of a steel structure with masonry walls and
concrete floors. The structure will remain intact and
utilized as a frame in which new volumes and program
will be inserted. The strategy at play in the structure
is to invert the urban condition allowing the street-like
path enter and slice the building. This open-aired path
meanders the structures, and continues the sequence
from the greenway site to Dorgenois St, the plaza condition
at the church, and the church itself.
Adjacent to the carved path are the programmatic volumes,
which are able to open themselves to the path
and elements or close inward. The concept of the city
clock, and a diversity of scale, user, and service exists
within the structure; therefore, it is a microcosm of the
city street compacted into the space. The entire space
is protected by

the Nucleus

project model

design process

A project is always in a state o f process.
This design was worked through a process
o f e xpe r imentat i on, imgainat i on and making.
However, the process itself is as important
as the final product , wi thint the processlies
the thought , the s t ruggl e and the ideas .
During the semester, the project developed
through various mediums, ideas were tested
on paper, with scraps and with anything
available . A single idea was reworked, and
reimagined in multiple forms , and it was
during these creations that the architectur e
really grew and became real . Drawing and
making are inescapable actions in this process,
the drawing i s where ideas are pushed,
where a gesture becomes a plan . The making
of models is where form is coreographed.
And i ssues , bo th conc eptual and physical
are interrpreted and inform the architecture .
Drawings on canvas , mylar, sketchbook
pages, and trace paper, along wi th models
on wood, metal , and some t imes no surface
at all , are at the foundation o f the resulting architecture.

In a thesis which seeks to understand the informal

and imporvisation it was necessary t o design in this

same fashion. And process must remain visible in
both design and idea for the thesis to have
meaning.