A New York YMCA

Bronx, New York, NY

A proposal for a Bronx Branch of the NY YMCA brought into question the history of the Y within the context of its contemporary practice. The historical Y, a traditionally introverted, reformist institution, can be seen as an urban citadel. In the present moment, the YMCA has opened itself as a community resource, an institution motivated by the people that make up the communities it is trying to serve. The Edenwald site in the Bronx, presented an opportunity to consider the Y’s desire for community engagement and rethink the main programmatic elements as a catalyst for both architectural intervention and public interaction. The key program was tested through a doubling that serves to propagate user activity throughout the site. Programmatic doubles are resolved as a series of figured Boolean operations, acting as spatial voids within a bar building typology. The tectonics of each “double” were figured as a means of creating distinct programmatic zones that engaged both interior and exterior use. Material types are rendered to facilitate the particularities of each given use. The resultant sequence of spaces was then able to allow programs such as basketball courts, and swimming pools to exist as an extension of a public plaza, offering a flexibility in use, and an ennobling of the existing site to be enjoyed by the Edenwald community.