Project Overview

Terra Musa is a groundbreaking urban housing project in Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York City, offering a flexible and short-term accommodation solution specifically tailored for the community's seasonal and temporary workforce. TerraMusa pays tribute to Red Hook's long history centered around shipyards, its transient immigrant populations, and its emerging role as a hub for the micro-food industry. It provides an adaptive and affordable living environment for a diverse group, including agricultural workers, market workers, and employees from local businesses such as the seasonal farmers' group, Red Hook Winery, and others.

Organisation

Dingding Shi

Team

Dingding Shi

Project Brief

A new trend in market-rate development of both permanent and temporary housing has moved much closer to the models set up by transient housing of the past. Market-rate hotels and apartment rental developments are offering alternatives to traditional unit typology with many shared basic amenities like kitchens common living areas, and even in some cases shared bathrooms. Cost is not always the driving factor in the choice to live in these developments.
Millennial tendencies are toward the social space, viewing housing as more of a necessity rather than a luxury, where the opportunity to socialize and mix with others is more important than larger privatized spaces. The disparity between this model and traditional low-income temporary and permanent housing is far less defined. It affords us a unique opportunity to envision a new building typology (creative housing) where the concept of integration in inclusionary housing is not simply to provide for varying incomes but actually to attempt to desegregate them.
The shift in thinking toward smaller unit types is generational and a response to changes in family demographics and the ways in which younger generations gravitate toward cities. Value is less about privately owned space and is instead geared toward shared economies, social structures, and the integration of work/life into domestic settings.

Project Innovation/Need

The core of Terra Musa's design philosophy is to enhance the cohesion of the Red Hook community by integrating living spaces with the long-standing needs of the local micro-food and agriculture industry through a shared economy concept. The project will utilize an extensive development of public and shared program areas to strengthen Red Hook's existing micro-food industry, and by creating new shared housing supports to foster the growth of a shared economy. It provides temporary accommodations, marketplaces, and shared living areas to promote economic circulation for the local high-transit population. The project includes highly versatile modular housing units and an integrated market design, balancing the needs of Red Hook's workforce with comfort and affordability. TerraMusa's public program spaces can enhance Red Hook's catering and agricultural market services and also serve as focal points for community interaction. By creating shared housing support for initiatives like market collectives and linking these supports with the site organization and circulation of the entire project, Terra Musa aims to elevate the vibrancy and economic value of the local community.

Design Challenge

Maintaining the economic viability，respect for the original architecture, local culture, and history，the newly added part of the building after the old building is too heavy，all of these are the difficulties in the design process.

Sustainability

Terra Musa And significantly reducing the logistics carbon footprint by prioritizing locally produced bricks, concrete, and wood, while strengthening support for the local economy.
TerraMusa Not only encourages local food production and consumption to reduce food mileage and carbon emissions but also enhances urban greening and air quality improvement through the introduction of advanced small urban hydroponic farms, green roofs, and community gardens. These measures directly support the diversity of the urban ecosystem, while providing fresh and healthy food ingredients to the community residents.
Through regular sustainable lifestyle workshops and events, TerraMusa strengthens community members' awareness of conservation and sustainability. These activities not only educate community members but also inspire them to take action together to build a highly environmentally conscious and engaged community culture.
The Terra Musa stormwater collection system is designed to efficiently irrigate community gardens and small urban hydroponic farm solutions, greatly reducing the reliance on traditional water resources.
Terra Musa Through the use of green building technology and optimized materials, such as green roofs, wall greening, and natural ventilation design, the project has achieved a significant improvement in energy efficiency and enhanced the comfort of the living environment. In particular, the project's innovative applications in thermal insulation performance and natural light utilization not only reduce energy needs but also improve the quality of living and environmental aesthetics.