View of the Gift Shop
Oceana: Changing Currents is the new Lower East Side, New York headquarters for Oceana, the sole global nonprofit entirely dedicated to ocean conservation.
The design of the project begins with a proposed rebranding of the organization and then interprets the new brand a) into new program components for this headquarters; and b) into three-dimensional space for program components.
New programs that enable the organization to “walk the walk and talk the talk” of its mission in its own headquarters are proposed. These programs encourage employees to be zero waste. Examples include eating areas designed with bringing food from home in mind; garbage chutes made of glass, carrying the trash down from the upper floors, exposing our waste habits; and in the lobby, a center for citizens to recycle hard-to-recycle trash items that might otherwise end up in landfills.
The design of the project begins with a proposed rebranding of the organization and then interprets the new brand a) into new program components for this headquarters; and b) into three-dimensional space for program components.
New programs that enable the organization to “walk the walk and talk the talk” of its mission in its own headquarters are proposed. These programs encourage employees to be zero waste. Examples include eating areas designed with bringing food from home in mind; garbage chutes made of glass, carrying the trash down from the upper floors, exposing our waste habits; and in the lobby, a center for citizens to recycle hard-to-recycle trash items that might otherwise end up in landfills.
View of the Main Stairs
Currents are the ocean's agent of change, just as the organization Oceana strives to be an agent of change in policy and practices. To show the disruptive power of this change, the ocean's currents are reimagined as the major program components of this headquarters: they wind through the building, bursting through walls and disrupting the rectilinear qualities of the existing building. At points, they spill over to the outside the building, becoming balconies and overhangs. The process of reimagining these currents is shown below:
View of the Lecture Hall
View of the Ocean Lounge, a space intended to connect users of the space to the ocean through ocean noise and environment.
