Project by Nicole Kertznus, Krish, Aditi
The Midtown Organism reimagines a single Midtown East block as a living system organized around food, care, and shared life. Rather than treating buildings as isolated programs, the project weaves rooftops, interiors, façades, and ground levels into a continuous loop where growing, cooking, eating, storing, and exchanging food become collective acts. Food is not introduced as an object, but as an infrastructure, one that moves through people, spaces, and economies, connecting those who live, work, pass through, and rely on the block. By pairing limited on-site growing with distributed kitchens, markets, and visible storage, the block transforms everyday routines into shared rituals. The loop stitches together public and private realms, above and below ground, human and non-human life. The Midtown Organism proposes that even within the constraints of Midtown, architecture can restore connection, using food to reveal how a city might function not as fragments, but as a coordinated, caring whole.
