Tommy Yang

My Nuanced Topia project challenges reclamation and development by introducing a hybrid junction to facilitate the creation of a hyper-micro immigrant community operating within the 74th Street-Roosevelt Avenue subway station. The framework hinges on spaces of opportunities that engulf the existing train structure, which create spaces for the station’s daily actors. Here, architecture is an assembly of programs plugged into the system of the whole, becoming a fable formed of existing sites and its artifacts of process and emerging from the clash of urban grids and the intersection of transportation arteries. Within this framework live objects, humans, trains, and buses and the nuanced acts of life are congregated. Interrelated zones allow characters to create and share fantasies that hinge themselves on the existing infrastructure of the International Rail Line. By incorporating these spaces into the act of reclamation, my thesis examines the site as a convergence of urban ecosystems, industrial artifacts, and human events. The actions of the characters maintain the -topias fantasies of anarchic uprisings, environmental efficiency, ethical treatment, and the production of self and goods.