LUNCHBOX is a challenge taken against the changing conditions of cities that were once shaped around industry. Newark has seen a fragmented industrial past with the change of modes of production, movements of communities in and out of the city. This fabric holds a great potential for new habitations, areas of accumulation. Housing particularly is a complex component of this accumulation related closely with employment conditions, commuting and local production.
Lunch-box aims to set a model for productive habitation and identity through productive urban landscape not as a frozen form of house ownership. For the Westinghouse site, we use the periphery for settlement and the center for vegetative production. Our motive in this decision was the difficulty of Newark residents’ accessibility to fresh-produce and the lack of a farmer’ s market. We do not only aim to grow produce but also target to sell it to the community.
Our design is composed of different variations of units aiming to bring together a community of students, singles, and families from different socioeconomic backgrounds. We propose a different kind of commitment, not to the house but to the time-span needed there. This contract-based temporality creates mobility for the people who need to change their employment conditions. We use the container in a non-aestheticised architectonic approach remaining faithful to the industrial texture of the city. The units are either for single-people, couples or families. They have additive components changing with regards to different functions and use profiles but the box itself is self-sufficient to maintain a living.
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