Dror for Storefront for Art and Architecture

New Rock: a new topography for Manhattan

Today, we are experiencing the emergence of a culture that is marked by a return to, redefinition, and expansion of the notion of the commons. The increasing complexity and interconnectedness of globalization is reorienting us away from trends that have emphasized individuation and singular development, and toward new forms of collectivity.

For its latest exhibition, Sharing Models: Manhattanisms, Storefront for Art and Architecture invited the studio, along with 29 international architects and designers to consider how this movement—the sharing movement—will affect the ways in which we inhabit and build the cities of tomorrow. Asked to establish analytical, conceptual, and physical frameworks for constructing urban space within the parameters of a section of Manhattan, we began to explore a new topographies for the city, one of the most dense and iconic urban areas in the world.

New Rock: Terra Era is a conceptual vision that seeks to challenge our current landscape and provoke thought around a new skyline, one that does not rely on selfish, standalone buildings and skyscrapers. Envisioning a future where nature, architecture and technology merge, where building materials are as intelligent as living beings, we proposed a singular living organism that changes, grows and evolves according to needs of the city and its inhabitants. Uniting in a symbiotic relationship, our terrain becomes part of our community.

See our physical model at Sharing Models: Manhattanisms at Storefront for Art and Architecture through September 2, 2016. For more information, visit storefrontnews.org.

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