Project • 2025
Socrates Sculpture Park

This project is an unsolicited design proposal for a flexible, multiuse pavilion in Socrates Sculpture Park (link) in Long Island City. The design of the project references cultural memory, global immigration patterns, and the American suburban condition.

Culture and Suburb

Global immigration patterns often create complex cultural intersections. As families and cultures cross borders, immigrants remain attached to their native cultures while navigating those of their adoptive homes. Cultural transmission allows second and third generation immigrants to retain aspects of their heritage while living in their host countries. However, this means that many people retain internal cultural influences from places of which they have little to no direct memory.

For much of America’s history, immigrants to the United States predominantly settled in urban centers. More recently, immigrants have settled in smaller urban centers or suburban areas, creating new cultural intersections and changing patterns of suburban occupation.

These two phenomena are combined and explored to create the Socrates Sculpture Park Pavilion.

Diagram

The pavilion is conceived as a two-part composition. The core of the project is a public zone called the Memory Space that references Korean domestic architecture. The space utilizes immateriality to create a space evokes history and memory.

To expand programmatic possibilities, the Memory Space is surrounded by the Suburban Roof, a structure constructed from pragmatic materials common to suburban neighborhoods.

The Memory Space

The Memory Space is created via a process of deconstruction. The Samcheong Hanok, an existing historic Korean dwelling constructed in 1940 (link) forms the starting point for exploration.

The hanok footprint is carved into the earth to create a below-grade public space, as a gesture to archaeological sites. Interior walls are expressed as concrete footings, while domestic spaces find are expressed via raised wood decking, serving to reference the suburban landscape and ondol, the traditional Korean underfloor heating system. The internal courtyard is articulated in standard brushed concrete.



The ceiling of the space is created via a similar process. The roof forms of the Samcheong Hanok are used to create a subtractive form articulated as a wire mesh massing that references the internal spatiality of domestic Korean architecture. The insubstantial nature of the ceiling reinforces the concept of cultural history and memory. The lack of internal walls creates an open public space and reinforces the sense of horizontality often associated with traditional Asian architecture.

The wire mesh is supported via a structural armature that exists outside of the primary concept. A double-layer steel plate structure anchors a cable grid that supports a tensile roof and the wire mesh ceiling. Circular openings within two of the support walls reference Asian architectural tropes. The double-layer construction allows the space to incorporate roof drainage and other technical systems.

The Suburban Roof

The Suburban Roof is a sixteen-foot deep zone that wraps around the Memory Space to increase programmatic potential. The space defined by the roof is connected to the Memory Space via ramps and staircases correlated to transitional public areas of the Samcheong Hanok floor plan (i.e., entry stairs and indoor/outdoor spaces). The pavilion and public landscape are arranged on a generic eight-foot grid.



The Suburban Roof evokes the materiality of the suburban American landscape, with a custom steel structure derived from chain-link fence construction. The upper roof is clad in polycarbonate panels that evoke informal greenhouse structures. The outer edge and lower boundary of the roof are covered in chain-link fencing that reinforces the concept and evokes patterns of suburban life without resorting to mimicry.



To further the relationship to the American suburb, the plaza surrounding the Suburban Roof is defined by a decorative exposed-aggregate concrete with treated and stained 4x4 wood embeds laid out on the project grid, evoking the American backyard condition.



Site Strategy

The Pavilion is located at the northern end of Socrates Sculpture Park. This minimizes impact to the existing use and perception of the site and serves to create a secondary locus of creative urban activity. Locating the Pavilion far from the primary entrance allows the preservation of the informal nature of the site, and has the potential to promote expansion of civic activity north of the site.

Alluding to the universal nature of the design concept, the Pavilion is arranged on a generic cardinal orientation that does not relate to any particular place or site influence.

Area Plan



Pavilion Section