Nicole’s Thesis on Subway Infrastructure and Civic Care
Fragmentation to Reassembly
As Nicole’s senior year at James Madison University comes to a conclusion, her thesis presentation offers a proactive exploration of how architecture can respond to urban instability with dignity and intention.
New York City’s visible homelessness is not simply a problem to be solved, but an existing condition that calls for spatial intervention. This thesis asks: how might abandoned subway infrastructure be reclaimed as temporary environments of refuge, hygiene, and rehabilitation? Rather than proposing permanent housing, the project focuses on transitional spaces, places that provide stability, care, and dignity for individuals in moments of uncertainty. Can we create a rehabilitation space for the community in need?
The Harrisonburg team was lucky enough to hear Nicole’s presentation in person.
At its core, the project challenges the assumption that new systems must be built to address social issues. Instead, it explores how underutilized and abandoned infrastructure can be reset to serve immediate human needs. By restructuring these forgotten spaces as civic hygiene ports, the proposal asks architecture to be a tool for care rather than control.
The theoretical framework comes from Henri Lefebvre and his concept of socially produced space. Lefebvre argues that environments both shape and reflect lived experience. Within this thesis, that idea becomes prominent. Designing for individuals experiencing instability requires an understanding of movement, memory, and the psychological impact of space. These environments must raise agency and independence, rather than reinforce confinement.
The proposal is situated in Lower Manhattan, focusing on a series of abandoned subway platforms where trains currently pass through but do not stop. In this reimagined system, trains would temporarily stop at these platforms, allowing them to function as areas for hygiene, rest, and recovery.
The spatial experience is intentionally linear and narrative-driven. Participants enter from one end of the platform and exit from the other, moving through a sequence that reflects transformation: arrival in fragmentation and departure in reassembly.
Within the design, permanent voids are carved into the platform to house essential services: showers, sinks, restrooms, (plumbing). These fixed elements provide consistent access to hygiene. Surrounding them, adaptable partitions allow the space to shift based on user needs, creating moments of privacy while maintaining a sense of openness and visibility.
A protective architectural layer separates the inhabitable zones from the active subway tracks. This shall filter air, reduce sound, and establish a calmer interior environment. In both physical models and presentation materials, this condition is represented through tracing paper, an intentional choice that communicates permeability, protection, and transition.
While the project directly responds to the growing number of unhoused individuals in New York City, it is not exclusive in its use. Instead, it is open as civic infrastructure. Accessible to anyone in need of rest, hygiene, or recovery. In doing so, it broadens the conversation around who public space is truly for.
This thesis is further informed by a range of critical texts. Alejandro Aravena’s work on participatory design and incremental housing emphasizes adaptability and user agency, stabilizing the project’s flexible spatial strategies. Matthew Desmond provides insight into the systemic nature of housing insecurity, highlighting the tension between aid and profit. Additional influences include Richard Sennett, Mike Davis, and Martin Pawley, each contributing to the broader discourse on urbanism, housing, and social responsibility.
The thesis extends beyond drawings and models into an immersive presentation. Nicole chose to install her work within a long, narrow hallway, intentionally recreating the claustrophobic and constrained conditions of a subway platform. Trace paper lines both the walls and ceiling, reinforcing themes of layering, movement, and transformation.
The presentation is structured around a series of verbs, arrive, wash, soak, rest, depart, with moments of relief. These repeated actions represent the recurrent and overlapping experiences of individuals moving through instability and care. Rather than simply illustrating the project, the installation invites viewers to physically and emotionally engage with it.
As visitors move through the space, they experience compression, heat, and limited circulation. This sensory engagement mirrors the architectural conditions being proposed, allowing the audience to better understand the urgency and intention behind the design.
The project also aligns with emerging real-world initiatives. Zohran Mamdani has proposed repurposing vacant subway retail spaces as drop-in sites for outreach services, reinforcing the relevance and timeliness of Nicole’s approach.
Through this work, architecture becomes more than a form-making exercise, it becomes an act of re-functionality. By altering overlooked infrastructure into spaces of care, the project reimagines the role of the built environment in addressing social inequities. It suggests that dignity, beauty, and support can and should exist within even the most forgotten spaces of the city.
