Text

The Common Y
Harvard Graduate School of Design Architecture Studio (Prof. T. Hyde)
Location: Rose Kennedy Greenway, Boston
Program: Multi-use YMCA facility
Challenge: What is the role, form, and function of the Town Commons in the contemporary urban environment?

The best existing model of a functioning common space in contemporary society is the social networks of the internet, which offer users the ability to project information about themselves, observe a rich and changing cultural landscape, and operate in a layered environment of data and online identities. Translating this atmosphere into architecture allows the physical space of the Y to operate as a Commons, where individuals and information project themselves, interface, and overlap.

Design Principles
Overlapping views
One of the central characteristics of social networks is the tension between self-expression and voyeurism. We construct our own online identities and follow those of friends, corporations, and celebrities. The Y contains a series of unexpected views, providing similar opportunities both for exhibition and observation. The library reading room, for instance, offers sky-box views of the gym, while a weaving running track can be glimpsed from almost every point in the building. Overlapping spaces and unexpected adjacencies allow users to parade in public view and, as easily, hide out in privileged vantage points to observe the menagerie.

Hybrid Spaces
Single spaces with multiple functions allow for chance encounters and unexpected juxtaposition. The enormous, interior staircase operates as circulation, meeting space, and auditorium seating. The green roof system, likewise, serves a second function as a playground area for a childcare facility, the sidewalk transforms into a gallery space, and one of the vertical circulation cores lives a second life as the athletic facility’s climbing wall. These hybridized spaces, among others, facilitate the constant mixing and recombination of elements that characterizes the role of the contemporary commons.

Information projection
The most important function of the digital commons is their ability to translate, relay, and project information. The Y achieves this through enormous LED panels that clad its structure, communicating with the urban context through a changing palette of ambient, coded colors. These panels project real-time data about weather, traffic, hosted events, and the accessibility of semi-public spaces. While some panels can function as didactically as traffic lights, other panels are coded in a more nuanced way to offer the public deeper layers of information as they grow more and more familiar with the Y as a Commons, a shared asset for the whole city.

The Common Y
Harvard Graduate School of Design Architecture Studio (Prof. T. Hyde)
Location: Rose Kennedy Greenway, Boston
Program: Multi-use YMCA facility
Challenge: What is the role, form, and function of the Town Commons in the contemporary urban environment?

The best existing model of a functioning common space in contemporary society is the social networks of the internet, which offer users the ability to project information about themselves, observe a rich and changing cultural landscape, and operate in a layered environment of data and online identities. Translating this atmosphere into architecture allows the physical space of the Y to operate as a Commons, where individuals and information project themselves, interface, and overlap.

Design Principles
Overlapping views
One of the central characteristics of social networks is the tension between self-expression and voyeurism. We construct our own online identities and follow those of friends, corporations, and celebrities. The Y contains a series of unexpected views, providing similar opportunities both for exhibition and observation. The library reading room, for instance, offers sky-box views of the gym, while a weaving running track can be glimpsed from almost every point in the building. Overlapping spaces and unexpected adjacencies allow users to parade in public view and, as easily, hide out in privileged vantage points to observe the menagerie.

Hybrid Spaces
Single spaces with multiple functions allow for chance encounters and unexpected juxtaposition. The enormous, interior staircase operates as circulation, meeting space, and auditorium seating. The green roof system, likewise, serves a second function as a playground area for a childcare facility, the sidewalk transforms into a gallery space, and one of the vertical circulation cores lives a second life as the athletic facility’s climbing wall. These hybridized spaces, among others, facilitate the constant mixing and recombination of elements that characterizes the role of the contemporary commons.

Information projection
The most important function of the digital commons is their ability to translate, relay, and project information. The Y achieves this through enormous LED panels that clad its structure, communicating with the urban context through a changing palette of ambient, coded colors. These panels project real-time data about weather, traffic, hosted events, and the accessibility of semi-public spaces. While some panels can function as didactically as traffic lights, other panels are coded in a more nuanced way to offer the public deeper layers of information as they grow more and more familiar with the Y as a Commons, a shared asset for the whole city.