Tim Annin

Harlem New Media Center

Location: New York, NY

4th year studio (fall 2012): 15 weeks

Located at the intersection of 125th Street, Halem’s main commercial thoroughfare, and 5th Avenue, our New Media Center marked the northernmost extent of Museum Mile. Our 3 member group together sought to create new opportunities for the residents of East Harlem by providing agency through a combination of public educational spaces & an artist residency program. After thoroughly researching the cultural entities and how to best compliment their existing facilities, we analyzed & adjusted the given program to better meet the community's needs. This exercise led to our inclusion of a housing component in addition to the required exhibition & production spaces after seeing the projected future shortfall of affordable housing in the neighborhood. The artists in residence are given the use of an individual studio, shared production lab, and their own small residence with views overlooking the park. These resources granted to the artists remove the barriers to entry into New Media Art and allow them to create, giving back to the community and maintaining Harlem’s status as a world cultural capital.

Architecturally, we sought to pull visitors vertically through the NMC, engaging them with the resident artists. The group chose to open ground floor to the public and wrapped a monumental stair around the diagonal columns, inviting patrons upward to the exhibition & lobby spaces. Users can continue vertically, filtering through the more controlled production zone, where they can witness the artists’ process and become involved per the artists' choices. The last vertical leg of the trip brings people to the skybar and rooftop garden terrace. The skybar aims for maximum transparency, aesthetically tying it to the lower public spaces & granting views to Marcus Garvey Park to the south & the rest of Harlem to the north. The unconventional structural system allowed our theater to remain unobstructed and gave us the opportunity to begin wrapping stairs and spaces around it, creating stronger upward pull.