Bowery Residents’ Committee

For nearly 50 years, BRC has worked to break the cycle of homelessness in New York City. They help people reclaim lives lost, restoring hope and dignity by offering opportunities for health and self-sufficiency.

As part of a Design Advocates Team, we created a prototype furnishings system for BRC’s purpose-built transitional shelters. The project seeks to balance the seemingly oppositional needs of privacy, health, and safety and seeks to afford clients a sense of individual space and agency, while affording staff supervision and visibility. A flexible frame acts as an armature for a mix of opaque and transparent panels that demarcate space and also ensure a higher degree of partitioning between residents. Simple materials and construction techniques ensure that residents enrolled in building maintenance programs are able to repair the system as needed.