The Women’s Building
International Design Competition
New York, NY
WITH SPACESMITH AND ARE(x)A
Davis Brody Bond in collaboration with Spacesmith and ARExA was one of four finalists in an an international design competition to design The Women’s Building in West Chelsea. Sponsored by the NoVo Foundation in collaboration with the Goren Group, the project sought “imaginative, inspiring, and practical decisions” that would transform an abandoned women’s prison on the West Side Highway into a new global hub for the girls’ and women’s rights movement.
As the nexus for the collective efforts of hundreds of activists and entrepreneurs, the Women’s Building has a crucial mandate to connect and catalyze. To enable this, the design team started by choreographing the circulation of users, optimizing for interactions between people and programs. Next, we transformed former dead-ends into new connection points — fostering relationships and trust among potentially disparate groups by maximizing transparency and flow. Finally, we ensured plenty of shared space to meet and exchange ideas, flush with daylight, and connected by supportive, collective services. Reborn as a hub of activism and engagement, The Women’s Building will offer social justice leaders the resources and support they need to drive critical change. It’s not just a workspace but a vertical neighborhood, designed to spark serendipitous interactions, build partnerships, create networks, and grow sustainable solutions.
Our project proposed large horizontal floor plates with shared common areas, destinations for community and discovery. A terraced atrium brings light into the communal core with vertical inter-connectivity, turning the stack of workplace floors into a buzzing, thriving neighborhood. At the base of this neighborhood, resources serve body, mind, and spirit: from business services to health and wellness, from childcare to contemplation.
At ground level, the base of the building is transformed into a permeable, light-filled arcade. In this alcove, the visitor finds a cascading pocket park; this new urban amenity a sibling of the nearby High Line. Ascending to the top of this park, a plaza at the base of our atrium hosts the exchanges between building occupants, social justice leaders, and the public. A theater, event spaces, restaurant, retail spaces, and galleries converge at the atrium plaza. It is from this elevated and integrated ground plane that the exuberance and power of change is broadcast to the larger community, our city, and the world.
(Renderings courtesy of Davis Brody Bond / Spacesmith / Are(x)a)
At ground level, the base of the building is transformed into a permeable, light-filled arcade.
On the roof, the story of the Women’s Building comes full circle. An incubator kitchen pairs rising chefs with former inmates, training them for a new career and a fresh start.
PERMEATE. Once a heavy defensive mass, the building’s street level now invites visitors in. A cascading pocket park welcomes change-makers and guests behind an open arcade.
COMMUNICATE. The building’s catalytic core ignites at the atrium plaza level. Here public programs bring social justice leaders together over ideas, food, art and culture.
INCUBATE. Large, open & light-filled workspaces are connected through collaboration spaces around a central atrium. Small businesses, non-profits and NGO’s share resources and exchange ideas.
Wellness Center
Rooftop Vegetable Garden
Restaurant Incubator Kitchen
Small Business Services
