Prefabrication experiments - 103 - Habitat New York II

Moshe Safdie’s Habitat 67 designed and built as an experimental prototype of collective housing for the 1967 World Fair in Montreal is certainly one of the most recognizable and distinctive architectural experiments of the 20th century. Renewing the modern tradition of demonstration architecture, it was at once a knowledge incubator and a catalyst for innovation. Proposed as the union of the single family dwelling with the benefits of shared infrastructure, the pyramid shaped utopia of grouped living shells or modules employed a rigorous geometric stacking informed by issues of proximity, circulation and dynamic architectural movement. Engaging a need for density, the experiment at the Man and His World exhibition in Montreal spawned from academic design research engendered multiple prototypes to be tested all over the world. 

One of Safdie’s many proposals explored geometry and modularity with a somewhat futuristic aesthetic. Somewhere between Japanese metabolism and Archigram’s hyper-dense living mega-structures, Habitat New York II was to be built in New York City's east harbour adjacent to the Brooklyn Bridge. The overall composition resembled Habitat 67's pyramidal shape but exhibited a more complex structural strategy. Slip-formed central cores or masts used for circulation anchored catenary structural cables encased in concrete, which produced the sail-like profile. The stacked modules were suspended from these stressed cables and occupied the space between the arc segments and the vertical piers. The octagon as opposed to rectangular prism was used as a basic building block combined in multiple organisations both in plan and in section.

Reintroducing on the era’s plug and play capsule aesthetic each unit's section related to its neighbouring unit. Flats were either one floor or split-level  «raumplan» configurations and the resulting dense interactions were offset by rational placement of both exterior spaces and openings onto magnificent views. The triangulated vertical clusters were placed on site in a diagonal grid pattern that maximized openness from the city to the harbour.

The somewhat artificial geometric aesthetic was a major change from the simplicity of Habitat 67. Habitat New York II was never built, due to lack of funding. It is part of a series of experiments that endeavoured to bridge the need to maximize social collective infrastructure with privacy and individual dwelling units. 

Habitat New York II - building section