The South Bronx, a neighborhood with 35% of its residents living below the poverty line, is facing the mass displacement wave that threatens working-class New Yorkers. Policy and activism aimed at resisting displacement is, justifiably, often focused on access affordable housing. But what, beyond secure individual dwelling places, makes a neighborhood strong? 

This project makes the case for co-design as a critical aspect of developing anchoring institutions and proposes a methodology to transform an existing community space in the South Bronx, the Andrew Freedman Home, into an anchoring institution for the surrounding neighborhoods.

Through community partnerships and an embedded engagement process over two years, we facilitated various projects in which involved the disconnected youth and constructed scenarios for the future of their neighborhood.