We propose a structure consisting of 41 platforms elevated above Hunters Point South. Residences are built on top of these platforms, and platforms are organized to allow daylight to all levels. The structure is intended to hold approximately 1,600 rental units of varying typologies.

Every 12 years each platform is "erased" - its architecture completely removed - and then left fallow for one year. This process is staggered, so that in any given year a percentage of the total platforms lie empty.

Though the architecture on each platform is evanescent, the infrastructure that nourishes this architecture abides all acts of erasure. Dispersed MEP shafts cycle air, water, sewage, and information in and out of each unit, while structural elevator shafts do the same with inhabitants. These shafts are the only part of the building touching the ground, the only recognizable elements after each 13 year cycle, and made of the only "permanent" material - concrete - likely to be found in the structure.

Presented with the inevitable crisis of erasure, architecture is forced to adapt. A preemptive architecture emerges, one without pretensions of permanence, and so one that is able to turn the event of erasure into the anticipation of a fresh rebuilding: breaking-down to breakthrough. Without “permanent” architecture, notions of acquired authenticity and hierarchies of generational housing become irrelevant. Over time the repetition of erasure generates a methodical architectural evolution, the cycle of removal nurturing each new generation of housing — biological architecture in all about appearance.

Platform housing strives to combine the amenities and views of high-rise living with the pace and community of low-rise living. The conflation of these two states of living allows the platform to contain a variety of types – detached, semi-detached, row housing, party-wall housing – that shelter a full range of stakeholders.

The looming psychological inevitability of erasure produces communities that live differently in time. Formed with an inceptive recognition of physical impermanence, platform communities are literally uprooted from the Earth. They exist in a constantly changing relationship with their own spatial organization, creating spaces that are poignant, fragile, and fleetingly beautiful.

Are such communities the product of their spatial organization, as are most urban communities, or are they disassociated from it completely? Will such communities persist and rebuild together after erasure, or vanish with their architecture? The answer to either one of these questions answers the other. In an era of often immaterial social relationships, platform communities find meaning — good or bad — in their physical substance.

The site for our structure — Hunters Point South — is itself physically comprised of the evidence of architectural impermanence. First a quiet middle-class residential neighborhood, then a densely occupied industrial site, then a tabula rasa for the city’s avant-garde artists, today Hunters Point South is Long Island City’s architectural graveyard, a dumping ground for local construction contractors and a “planned zoning district” with a nebulous future.

Yet despite of its apparent emptiness, Hunters Point South is not characterless. Indeed, it is a place filled with the absence of architecture, a place where sensations of erasure and neglect overpower any sensations produced by the architecture encountered nearby. Hunters Point South communicates, in its emptiness, the sensation of settlement; the exhilaration of progress. Shrub and rubble displaced by yew and concrete. The erection of progress, visible to all the East River.

Indeed, Hunters Point South as it is now is heartbreakingly beautiful, so much so that our consensus builds around inaction: “I know where I am, but I don’t feel like I am at the spot where I find myself.” Yet as architects, we are unable to doubt our own facilities. Legions past have tried and ultimately failed to solve this design problem. Yet we, with our history, our empathy, and our self-awareness – we can succeed. The opportunity to inhabit a city in completely different way is a power rarely furnished and less often exercised.

The site at Hunters Point South is such an opportunity.

Having explained the structure, we now propose one possible form of architecture capable of responding to the crisis of erasure: instead of construction (nails, glue, welding), we propose assembly (nuts, bolts, framing). By embedding the processes of assembly into each building, we automatically embed the possibility of disassembly into each building, so anticipating their erasure.

Much like consumer products – appliances, electronics, clothing, cars – are understood to be complete and functional items with a planned obsolescence, so our buildings are meant to be complete and functional units with a planned disassembly. They are entirely a product of their time, and upon removal are meant to be recycled elsewhere in the building or offsite, as technological innovation dictates their usefulness.

Our proposed residential buildings use Bosch aluminum framing as the structural element. Into this framing we insert specially-designed floor / ceiling cartridge units, into which we have packaged all of the infrastructure requirements of each residence – HVAC, lighting, radiant heating, plumbing and wiring– a metaphorical implosion of conditioning systems allowing for customization and personalization through the unit’s interchangeable wall panels. Each cartridge is a self-contained unit capable of supporting all of the activity above / below via a horizontal connection to the building’s MEP cores.

Assembly, impermanence, and compaction of the building systems into the floor/ceiling cartridge grants domestic architecture freedom to submit itself to the market for designed objects. Since the layout and appearance of each wall panel is inconsequential to the core functionality of the unit, wall panels are able to be replaced, upgraded, and sent for repair as needed. In the absence of permanence, the exterior of each unit may become a means of expression; we anticipate a stratification of branded panels – the Mercedes-Benz panel; the Apple panel; the Wal-Mart panel – that, paradoxically, may in fact accelerate the adoption and evolution of new residential architectures.