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Nai Wong

Nai Wong

New York, NY, US

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The goal of the Hoboken/Jersey city housing project is to create a village-like housing agglomeration that transitions the commercial middle-high rises of Jersey City with the small-town atmosphere of Hoboken. In order to achieve this, we began the process by questioning some conventional solutions to some prevalent social issues. two examples of these social problems were commutation and the question of where "work" will be conducted in the future.

Traditionally, cities have attempted to alleviate traffic congestion by constructing new roads or expanding on existing ones. But, studies have shown that, the ideal solution to this problem is actually to remove the road entirely. On the other hand, corporations have utilizied a fixed allotment of office spaces in the past, where workers work a fixed amount of hours and are gathered in a central location. With the advent of communication technologies and a more mobilize work force, companies are forced to rethink this limited real estate model.

The relationship between home and work has evolved throughout history. In the beginning, people worked out of their homes. (ex. farmers) As the market demands changed, the products they produced required transportation to a central location for sale to the mass market. Today, the majority of people commute and work at a remote location. Our proposal is to create a network of residential units that can be shared for commercial use. As corporate offices decentralize and spread across a network of satellite offices, our shared units can benefit both parties . When the units are not in use by their tenants, it can potentially be shared and utilized by others.

By removing the roads, land previously occupied could then be reallocated for other purposes. Currently, automobiles and roads occupy on average approximately 65% of the land space around the site. We propose to remove all vehicular traffic within 6 blocks in order to promote pedestrian traffic. A new public transit system will provide transportation around the new transit hub within our site. This would also allow existing buildings to expand and extend into the reclaimed space. Within the site itself, the paths are limited to pedestrian and bicycle traffic. Mobility and connectivity between jersey city and hoboken dictate the shape and direction of this flow.

In addition to the primary and secondary circulation that traverse the site, within each cluster of housing, there are also private and public circulation paths. The sharable units are located only at locations where its accessible from publically accessible paths. This allows a separation between the two domains. It also allows the shared units to have alternative private entrances, in case the tenant would like to access the private portion of their unit while the rest is being occupied by others. Approximately 40% of the total units in the complex are sharable. Their function could range from private home offices, to rentable kitchens/restaurants, to simply lodging.

The paths within the site are limted strictly to pedestrian and bicycles. This allows the paths to remain relatively narrow, allowing the clusters to be located close to each other. The sharing of the units will be done through an online management system. This system allows the tenants to schedule availability as well as visitors to inquire about open units and current status of businesses. This system will also serve as a contigency system for the site in case a scheduled shared unit suddenly becomes unavailable. It will then notify its client and redirect him/her to alternatives.

The software site management system allows tenants to schedule the availability of their space in advance. Because there is a separation between the shared and private sections within each shared unit, each unit is virtually ready for sharing any time of the day. For quality control , there will be a rating system for each owner and their unit. this can reflect the cleaniness and readiness of each available apartment and encourage the owners to self maintenance. In addition, the software allows visitors to search for local businesses and it can provide status updates of them.

 
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Status: School Project
Location: Hoboken, NJ, US