Project by Danielle Seunghyun Min and Keenan Bellisari
The project proposes a block-scale urban regeneration model for East Midtown, Manhattan, responding to post-pandemic office vacancy, housing shortages, and dysfunctional urban density. The project restructures existing urban fabric by converting obsolete office space into family-oriented housing and introducing mixed-use towers that provide shared and communal programs absent from surrounding aging buildings.
Rather than operating as isolated objects, all buildings are interconnected through horizontal and vertical relationships, allowing residential, workplace, and communal programs to intersect and mutually support one another. The block is reimagined as a living urban system that enables long-term habitation, social interaction, and collective use of space.
By introducing a vertical public realm distributed across multiple levels, the project expands Manhattan’s traditionally street-bound public space into a three-dimensional communal network. Addressing physical, social, economic, and environmental dimensions simultaneously, the proposal demonstrates how regeneration can move beyond preservation toward a resilient and adaptive urban model for contemporary Midtown.
