Course: Spring 2024 Advanced Options Studio (Pratt)

Professor: Alison B. Snyder

This design studio explores the dynamic and diverse character of the Bowery, a historic neighborhood in lower Manhattan known for its eclectic mix of urban energy and cultural layers. Spanning from Chatham Square/Park Row near Chinatown and City Hall, north to Peter Cooper Square below Cooper Union, and sometimes extending to the East Village and Lower East Side, the Bowery is a rich tapestry of contrasts. Its storied past, marked by 19th-century notoriety, continues to influence its vibrant present, blending entrepreneurial spirit, historic and modern residential and educational spaces, and a varied street life.

The Bowery juxtaposes boarded-up storefronts with striking graffiti, old dive bars with upscale boutiques, and artist studios with landmarks like The Bowery Mission, a soup kitchen located right next to the New Museum. This area, with its legacy of vaudeville theaters, punk music clubs, poetry groups, dancehalls, dime museums, boxing exhibitions, and traveling 'freak shows,' is in a state of continuous transformation.

This studio focused on enhancing the Bowery’s “urban interior character” by delving into its multifaceted environment, challenging conventional notions of gentrification and preservation, avoiding binary distinctions between old and new. Instead, we investigated underutilized sites, developed a deeper understanding of the area through local history, literature, films, guest lectures, and fieldwork.

The first project in this course explored the urban interior through the streetscape, by designing kinds of 'street furniture,' and also ended up being incorporated into the design of this space. This first project, entitled NeoBowery, can be found here.

the scrap

site: 284 Bowery, NY

project sq. ft: 10,000

type: mixed-use - culinary/retail/community

The Sustainability Coalition for Repurposed Artistic Production (SCRAP) brings together facets of food, art, and sustainability. Teaching kitchens provide opportunities to learn from both professional chefs, as well as community members from the Bowery and Chinatown. Visitors can learn practical skills for culinary job training, or come along with their kids to make pineapple buns. Anyone looking for a bite to eat can also visit the salvage kitchen that sources its ingredients from rescued groceries— perfectly edible produce that is rejected from grocery stores due to aesthetic imperfections. This kitchen prioritizes reducing food waste, and additionally houses a preserves store where visitors can purchase jams, pickles, and other preserved goods, and even bring their own produce to be prolonged.

The second level dining area also serves as a meeting space for New York food activist groups.  On weekends, there is a fresh pantry available for anyone to purchase produce through the GROW NYC Farmstands program, and is also open to New Yorkers in need through SNAP EBT. All food waste is collected and either composted or used in the “scrap studio” arts  programming to make natural dyes for upcycled bags, ecoblock prints, or to teach composting workshops. The SCRAP aims to provide education and engagement, and to give life back to the planet and the Bowery. 

Salvage Kitchen

The Salvage Kitchen concept is inspired by innovative companies like Misfits Market and Imperfect Foods, which aim to reduce food waste by reclaiming and redistributing produce that might otherwise go unused. This design embodies the principles of sustainability, resourcefulness, and creativity, offering a culinary space that also aims to provide meals for the community using this produce. They could also potentially partner with The Bowery Mission to serve as a soup kitchen for those in need.

Scrap Studio

The Scrap Studio is imagined as a space for workshops including turning food waste into art using scraps from the teaching kitchens. Examples of workshops include making tote bags using eco-printed plants and scraps, natural dyeing garments of clothing, and block printing posters and cards. Additionally, composting workshops could be held to help educate visitors about how to properly compost.

Exchange Façade

Within the existing archway façade, a dynamic folding table seating area allows eating space to spill out onto the Bowery. Through pattern, the exhange between inside vs outside also allows activation of the street space.

Plan Design

The existing column structure is used to create an internal grid and subsequent areas for teaching kitchens, scrap studio, and market tables. These spaces are then further defined by floor pattern.

Space Features

Some of the special features of the scrap include clear dumbwaiters to transport items easily between floors, and to create vertical movement within the space. Additionally, angled mirrors above the teaching kitchen stations allow visibility from different angles.

Material Palette

The furniture selections include BIFMA certified chairs in vibrant colors, reclaimed wood tables and lighting, including fixtures sourced from the Bowery Lighting district. The existing material palette include brick, wood flooring, and tin ceiling. Pattern engraved cork is used in the teaching kitchen floors, and patterned ceramic tile in the scrap studio, fresh pantry, and exchange facade. Corrugated metal ceiling panels are interspersed throughout the existing ceiling for a dynamic and playful feel.

Mobile Maquette

Paper plates are used to create a maquette of a large mobile installation that hangs over the double height space.

This studio has taught me a great deal about the social dimensions of design. In learning how to develop a program, it’s not just about considering the site, the client, or what we normally consider in other studios. The Bowery has shown us that the site isn’t just about the physical surroundings of the place, but it must also address social space that it encompasses— people, history, culture.