The Hatch

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - GSAPP Summer Architecture Program

2019

The Bank Street Hatch was proposed as new environmental educational center for The Bank Street School for Children on Manhattan’s upper west side. The center was to be built in New York City’s RiverSide Park in a location of our choosing and incorporate themes such as sustainability and environmental science. Situated in a small forest clearing in the park, I wanted to disturb as little of its natural layout as possible. I chose to have my structure informed by the position of the existing trees, instead of having to cut them down during construction. I additionally wanted the structure to appear as if it were a natural extension of the ground, with only hints of human influence. I created a structure that sits under an organic earth-berm and flowed through the trees. The resulting undulations of the structure create large niches where students can study, read, or look out to the surrounding forest. I then designed an interior courtyard where, conversely, the environment around the structure would be shaped. Small niches that look into the courtyard encourage birds, squirrels, bees, and butterflies to seek refuge while being observable from the corridors and classroom. Native flora such as Bee Balm, Milkweed, Lavender, and Echinacea that attract small wildlife cover the earth berm and spill into the courtyard. The central courtyard stands as an inverse to the interior human space and can be observed quietly through the niches, or accessed through the classroom for studying the biological processes of pollination, nesting, birth, and maturation of local species. Like a fungus sprouting out of a fallen tree, the Hatch appears to grow from the forest itself, influencing the environment within it, while simultaneously being shaped by the environment around it.