Dirty Realism:
A Green New Civic

The goal of this project is to reclaim the street and celebrate the displays
of everyday life - work, reside, play and community. It uses the facilitation
of street culture and the blending of interior and exterior spaces and
activities through the use of corridors, informal pathways and arcades. New
street markets and vendor spaces are created as an extension of existing
sidewalks and act as a threshold to continue the sidewalk to interior spaces.
Functions overlap throughout the space over different periods of the day,
such as informal restaurants supporting the market and doubling as sleeping
spaces for the homeless. Galleries provide unique areas for muralists and
performers of the neighborhood to gather and engage with the architecture,
but also function as areas of protest and community organization. Corridors
allow the user to actively engage, or to take a peek through openings along
corridors. Through the setting of everyday life, sidewalk culture may be
reinforced and promoted through the porosity of the city fabric, as arcades
cut away and become an extension of the street. As the ground level remains
open and provides porosity, occupiable stoops lead to more enclosed and
intimate spaces and continue the language of the neighborhood. Rather than
providing a backdrop for tourists and short term residents, these spaces are
a safe space of expression for the community who are at risk of losing their
neighborhood.