Project by Jagger Udy, Jonah Johnson
GENESIS refuses the gravitational pull of maximum density and profit extraction, instead proposing a radical redistribution of value. By foregoing FAR maximization and transferring air rights to a transferable development rights bank, the design transforms residents from tenants into shareholders, creating pathways to collective wealth rather than displacement. The courtyard becomes the spatial manifestation of this counter-logic—a luminous commons where church, residents, and community converge through carefully choreographed light, resisting the privatizing force of typical development in favor of radical co-presence and economic solidarity. A three-part capital strategy fully covers the development costs and produces surplus capital for neighborhood reinvestment. This surplus seeds a broader civic vision: the transformation of St. Nicholas Avenue into Alexander Garvin’s dream of “Harlem Lane,” a continuous public green corridor. Long-term ownership of a new pipeline real estate assets along Harlem Lane is structured through a Regulation A+ Equity Real Estate Investment Trust that allows Harlem residents to purchase ownership shares, receive dividends, and collectively benefit from local asset growth. In doing so, this housing prototype offers a counter-gravitational framework for equitable development and community-controlled prosperity.
