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Diana Smiljkovic: Gowanus Terraces started out with the study of Chantal Mouffe’s Agonism which brought forward the concepts of fluctuation (between private and collective) and productive tension. The single unit is inhabited by 2 precarious workers and the unit fluctuates between shared border, absent border and their unification. Ritual becomes a sub narrative through the project where the space starts to create a choreography of reproduction, the ritualization of banal activity, and celebrating the mundane - this is done through the enfilade.
There is the concept of the private ramp that leads the dweller on a longer route to an entrance through their most private quarters and then the central social core which allows for easy access to each unit as well as the shared spaces between the units. The stepping of the site from water to ground to building is replicated in the terracing of the units which creates an architectural landscape and an axis across - connecting land and water.
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