The Man Affected by His Environment

The project consisted of designing an entire complex with multiple spatial systems. First, a real site was selected from an urban area of Miami. The property is undeveloped without any buildings, but had several houses along a street. My idea was to design how the environment affects man, his thought processes and the adverse effects to his overall physical and psychological health. After sketching how all this interplay relates to each other, an overall design was conceived based on these ideas. Two main spatial systems were developed having a bow and arrow relationship. At the end of the street a residential building will be erected where each floor represents the mind of the affected man. The spatial systems along the sides of the street represent the social-economic environment effecting the main via the mid street (the arrow) to exist as retail spaces. Above the retail is a walkway (the bow) allowing access to the building without traveling through the retail below and yet seeing it. The social-economic condition creates a bow with and arrow shooting toward the Man.

There is a great irony here. The social destruction of a destitute man is being made into a high-rise residential building with shops below. The social-economic depression is being replaced with a new developement that creates a neighborhood of anonymous neighbors, they may not know each other. The previous neighborhood, the neighbors know each other in spite of the depressed economic state of the area. Elitism has flourished.

I selected this image because the skin is transparent without any racial or ethnic associations. The Man refers to a single anonymous human being affected by his/her changing surroundings. The picture shows a healhy human male, a product of a healthy environment.