Beds and Balconies
In collaboration with Yanbo Li
Yale University
2025
Downtown New London is characterized by several distinct types of spaces, each with their own character (main streets, parking plazas, civic plazas, ferry terminals, monumental parking garages, waterfront promenades, residential streets, commercial “stroads,” railroad adjacent service roads, etc.)
Although these types of space are very close in proximity, they do not feel spatially or programmatically connected. Using the diagram and foundational formal move of building-as-transect, we propose a linear urban intervention that traverses the southern portion of downtown New London from Washington St at the Frontier Communications building to the Thames River at the Fishers Island Ferry. The building-as-transect is not necessarily one long building, but a framework and a site strategy for architectural intervention. It is a framework for containing several distinct “scenes taking place in the urban.” In other words, the project can be thought of as a cinematic project of finding “scenes,” framing them, and stringing them together in one narrative.