| Immigration is accompanied by a specific set of issues pertaining to the cultural identity of the migrant individuals in question as they interface with their new surroundings and its respective culture. Although largely social in nature,connections between the built environment and how these people adapt to their new surroundings can be uncovered and utilized in the design process. This exploration operates under the assertion that architecture born from a study of various pre and post-migratory rituals and practices can enrich and inform our current design knowledge, especially in the context of projected rapid urbanization due to increased migrant flows.;Using the concepts of deterritorialization, reterritorialization, and appropriation we can explore how uprooted sociocultural traditions have reinserted themselves into a new geographic fabric creating a hybrid milieu that constitutes the migrant experience. In an attempt to enhance this and create culturally responsive design for groups such as West Indian Immigrants in New York, an architectural tool kit of decentralized urban interventions is employed to construct this new identity from physical fragments of urban phenomena -- an architectural assemblage.;Sited in Flatbush, a West-Indian enclave in Brooklyn, New York this project explores ways in which designers can interface with issues of identity to create more nuanced experiences through design. Through the lens of an adaptive-reuse, mixed-used development based on West-Indian cultural practice we see how design can be abstract, yet specific enough to accommodate a particular way of life and dull the homogenizing forces of globalization on the built environment. |
