the wading city

a floating and walking cyborg infrastructure in the New York Harbor

Spring 2022- Pratt GAUD | Crisicity Studio - Cyborg Infrastructure in the Anthropocene
studio faculty: prof. Alexandra Barker, co-teacher: Luz Wallace

The Wading City comes out of the indeterminacy prevalent in the 2020s, particularly the idea of the city and the building not only as a changing entity—especially with the advent of AI generated imagery—but as adaptable entity addressing rising sea levels, food insecurity, ecological degradation, and local economic downtrends around postindustrial waterfronts. Thus generating an architecture which could respond to the inhabitants’ (both human and non-human) immediate needs.

By speculating an alteration to the cement carrier Loujiane as a walking and floating cyborg infrastructure, the Wading City incorporates an ecosystem of oyster aquaculture, marine habitat simulation, the New York Harbor School and more. The ship is dissecting and dismembered along its hulls, cranes and equipment to generate a new reconfigurable and indeterminate ar- chitectural typology along the lines of Cedric Price’s Fun Palace and Archigram’s Walking City.

The Wading City offers an infrastructural linkage built on abandoned ships and shipping parts across the New York Harbor constructing facilities both underwater and overwater along Billion Oyster Project sites, BlueCity potential areas, and other areas of interest across the harbor becoming a resilient, reliant and rethinking of service infrastructure addressing a city’s crises.