The Urban Ink Community Center, located in New York City, seeks to be a space that fosters authentic social interaction in the modern epidemic of social disconnection and loneliness. Through various programs, users are able to engage in activities that offer opportunities to strengthen connections with loved ones but also build meaningful relationships with new people. The design takes inspiration from New York’s urban infrastructure in architecture incorporating concepts of motion, suspension, and progression. Motion integrating the concept of the city’s transportation system that brings interconnectivity within. Suspension that plays with height volumes and a representation on rooted history of the Mohawk Skywalkers who built the city at high altitudes. And progression that reflects on New York’s ever-changing growth. The geometry used to develop key elements is extracted from patterns of various lines and angles which can be found on New York’s train maps. Each program category of learn, activate, connect, create, relax and restore is represented by the colors green, yellow, blue, red, and purple, the colors that codes different train lines. The same lines on the map are reinterpreted in this community center, found on the ground, to connect the spaces as a method of wayfinding while also enhancing the idea of interconnectivity. In doing so, the project transforms the language of the city’s connectivity into a space of human connection.
