Our approach to the design challenge was to create a space where people felt just as comfortable walking on the site as they would walking on a side walk. The Essex Market area in the Lower East side of Manhattan is vibrant with people but lacking in spaces designed for the people to congregate in. A space is only successful when there is a target audience and so our response targeted the commuters, shoppers, workers and surrounding neighborhood residents. By studying movement through the area we composed our curved forms to amplify the public space. The massive program was distributed into smaller buildings and the urban wall was pushed back from Delancy Street to incorporate a bigger public entry. The Velvet Underground, managed by Andy Warhol, was a band that was antiestablishment, unheard of and went against the grain with their music. That attitude lives throughout this design, and challenges preconceived ideas while putting the focus on the users. That’s why the decision was made to break the ground plane and move the main public activity areas below ground while connecting people and the buildings above. Another unconventional design decision was to bring the Warhol colors onto the exterior of the buildings to give them a sense of personality. This was accomplished through a façade strategy that incorporated colored photovoltaic films on select panels of glass. New strides were found in the structure of the Velvet Underground by bringing timber to new heights. By using a structural grid that is unique to each building shape an elegant timber skeleton was formed. The Velvet Underground’s music went on to inspire new genres like punk rock and alternative music. It is the hope of this proposal that future buildings will continue to explore the untapped potential of timber and produce more designs orientated around the users.