5. Ancel Plaza
Columbia Common Space Initiative
Design for America
Self-Directed, 2017-2019
Research Partners:
**Visualizations completed independently
Ancel Plaza is a project initiated by the Common Space Initiative, an organization I co-founded at Columbia University to address the widespread social isolation of students through concerted and participatory public space activation. We began by distributing a 1-minute online survey to the university community, through which over 500 Columbia affiliates offered input on six distinct public spaces on the Morningside Heights campus. Data showed that the visual appeal of a space does not always correlate with comfort, nor with the people’s willingness to spend extended periods of time in a given environment. Ancel Plaza, an elevated modernist square situated between the East Campus Residence Hall, the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), and Columbia Law School, was the worst-performing space overall, with respondents voting it the least visually pleasing and second-least comfortable.
Over the course of several months, the Common Space Initiative conducted observation studies of space usage and engaged with a variety of stakeholders, including cafe managers, student government members at SIPA, officials with the Office of University Life, and Columbia Facilities administrators. An extended, in-situ community visioning session generated a range of proposals for making Ancel Plaza a viable gathering space for students and staff alike. Many recommendations centered on flexible seating, work surfaces, food, shade, and greenery.
A simple, cost-effective design proposal was developed in response to this input and presented to administrators in 2019, after which limited parts of the proposal were implemented.
