FIRST PARK CAFE
Houston Street & First Avenue   NYC
 
The building and its site are literally intertwined.  The converging lines of the site, its traces, are rolled up into the kiosk that in turn folds back into the site.  When opened, this block-like building provides shelter and orientation for the cafe and public.
 
The games of the park, the swing, tire swing, jungle gym, shower, basketball, handball and gardening provide the generative rules for the design of the new structures.  The site, a wedge of space is reconfigured at a new scale, its boundaries and lines of passage provide the material for the pavilion.  The small building develops out of observations of play and the lines of reflection and communication that are found in games and the site plan.  Its surfaces are constructed from these lines of action, now hinged connections.
 
A hinged building.
 
At around noon every day, the site is activated by rolling out the awning and wheeling out the picnic tables and smaller tables and chairs; the building’s sides are folded up and out to extend its reach and sight from within.
 
Sequence of deployment