HAVEN | RED HOOK LIBRARY

STUDIO IV PROJECT

ABSTRACT

Red Hook is a waterfront neighborhood that is home to an active and friendly community and a declining industrial economy. Red Hook thrived during the Second World War, serving as a shipyard, and borders the Gowanus canal, which is a closely monitored contaminated superfund site.

My initial research into the site revealed numerous health hazards and a lack of medical care. The industrial past of Red Hook has left the neighborhood contaminated and scarred with environmental hazards. These hazards have left the neighborhood rife with preventable diseases. In 2013, the closing of Long Island College Hospital left the community concerned with their access to healthcare.

Approximately 18% of adults who live in the Red Hook Houses reported having diabetes (NYC average is 11%). 1 in 5 Red Hook residents report frequent mental stress. 23% of residents reported at least one family member living with asthma.

In addition, Red Hook remains geographically isolated from the rest of Brooklyn due to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. There are few subway stops which limit transportation. The BQE also contributes to the massive air pollution of the neighborhood, the air quality is classified as inhalable particulate matter (<10 micrometers).

Deceptively, Red Hook boasts the “most public park space per capita” but fails to consider that contamination (chiefly lead) has closed much of the area’s public space.

The Red Hook waterfront has created several problems for the environment. The waterfront includes a $21 million plug-in station for cruise ships which is now rarely used, but cruise ships still dock for days. When not using shore power, a single cruise ship docked for one day can emit as much diesel exhaust as 34,400 idling tractor-trailers, which does not help the air quality.

My analysis of the site lead me to three problems I sought to address: public access to land (particularly park land), providing healthcare to an area that is lacking in services, and creating a community space. Since our building site is directly replacing the library, I saw that the library was a focal point of community for the neighborhood. Thus the program of my proposal became a library community center with the addition of a clinic, providing a safe space for the community to both revitalize and assist them. The driving principle behind my project is encapsulated by the keyword “Haven”.

With the addition of a free clinic, I hoped to address the growing amount of preventable diseases that plagued Red Hook. The library evolved to more of a community center due to the nature and roles of libraries in our modern age - the information age has lead to libraries being more of gathering spaces than a means to obtain books due to the prevalence of e-books.

To further emphasize the idea of a “haven” to give the community more public area, the structure of my proposal would be consisting mostly of glulam trees, inspired my the glulam projects of Shigeru Ban. These supporting trees would hold up the roof and subsequently the curtain facade while also saving carbon emissions. The glulam would also give a sense of biophilia, the innate human instinct to connect with nature and other living beings. Studies show being near natural materials can lead to a increase in mood.

The inner haven of the proposal is tiered and separated in three ways, one is accessible to the public through the lobby, one is accessible from the classrooms as private space for children, and the final haven is only accessible to the patients of the clinic. This garden space furthers this idea of biophilia and creating park space for the neighborhoods of Red Hook.