In an image saturated world, our proposal seeks to do more than graphically improve one of the selected sites. We see our project as a conceptual extension of Battery Park, by using the scaffolding as a framework for activity. Inspired by observations around the city of how people use/misuse scaffolding, “Muscle Street” will simultaneously activate the space of the sidewalk and flatten it to an image.

The design is comprised of three parts. The first is the debris screen which uses wind to animate a typically static surface, through thin photovoltaic (PV) film panels, mounted perpendicularly to the surface of the screen. The PV panels will power the second part of the design, fluorescent strip lighting, which will light the surface of the debris screen and the space of the sidewalk. The third part of the design activates the sidewalk by allowing the scaffolding to be used for stretching, exercising, or rest. Muscle Street inverts the assumptions of surface and space by rendering the activity of the sidewalk as an image and animating a typically static surface.