Living Platform

Multifamily Housing (44 Units)/Mixed Use
Newark, NJ

Living Platform explores Cradle-to-Grave Living in Newark, NJ. Employing a series of interchangeable modules, units are able to grow and shrink as a person’s spatial requirements change over their lifecycle. Thus, residents never need to move.

A large platform divides the building in two, providing flexibility to the ground floor. With utilities provided from above, commercial spaces are easily switched out, extended, or contracted based on the needs of the community above. Around the core, community modules provide common space and can be outfitted or switched out based on residents’ needs. The name both refers to the physical platform bisecting the project and plays on the ubiquity of digital platforms that seek to prevent users from leaving their apps. The project thus proceeds both as a serious inquiry into spatial requirements over a person’s lifecourse and an ironic commentary on communal entanglements in the digital era, provoking questions about ownership, place, and urban living.