Garden State / Backyard City:
A Method for Urban Hybrids of the Future Citystate
2007

The spatial products of New Jersey; objects, buildings, cities, and landscapes, are collected, categorized and dissected into separate architectural elements. These elements — New Jersey’s urban traits — are then combined and mixed to breed new off-springs for a future New Jersey Citystate.

This project proposes a tool for urban speculation and experimentation, whereby the architect generates new urban entities (programs and forms) using units and elements of corporate power and expansion. As New Jersey outgrew its suburban nature, transforming into a new dispersed urban condition, its typical physical features — the generic products created by corporate power, have now become the genes for urban hybrids of a 21st century Citystate.

Princeton University Center for Urbanism,
Architecture and Infrastructure

with Els Verbakel

Project Team: Yan Chu, Ajay Manthripragada, Marc Mcquade, Ryan Neiheiser, Kate Snider, Michael Wang