2020 | Building | Unbuilt

The DUMBO YMCA challenges the YMCA as an institution in between the binary of a private and public space to ask the question: what is really public space? Spatially, the YMCA is divided into different programs and activities, with each activity inside the YMCA literally reflected on the outside and linked visually through transparent windows that situate direct eyelines between  activities. Bridges connect different programs and concrete walls separate space while cut-outs in the wall also allow visual access. Each program flows from the inside to the outside, linking the YMCA to non-members and providing accessibility for all residents and visitors in one of Brooklyn’s most expensive neighborhoods.

The YMCA also forms a maze of activity surrounded by individual green-space modules that are lifted off the ground, transforming the surrounding area into a larger park composed of separate spaces, that are connected and unified visually when visitors climb and sit at the top of the modules.