arch 232 individual studio project | 2018
Benay Gürsoy Toykoç, Assistant Professor
National Concrete Masonry Association Competition
The intersecting grids of Manhattan
The Neue Galerie, located on 5th Ave in the Upper East Side is a museum holding German and Austrian art from the early 20th century, located in a converted mansion overlooking Central Park. Additional exhibit space would allow for permanent exhibition of the museum’s collection of Wiener Werkstätte art, including paintings like the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I by Gustav Klimt, commonly known as the “Woman in Gold.” To expand the exhibit space, an addition would be built adjacent to the south face of the original museum, replacing a condominium building.
Conceptual models showing planes creating space.
This addition would take cues from the discordant gridded street networks of the city of New York. Just as Manhattan island is made up of many different street grid patterns and orientations—some more dominant than others, like the biggest section based on the Commissioner’s Plan of 1811—systems of planes at different orientations would intersect each other along specified grid lines to form volumes used for program space.
Important floor and structural planes, less important partition and connection planes.
The systems of planes would be arranged hierarchically based on purpose and geometry, with floor plates and structural walls as the most important and partition walls and connections less important.
Detail of intersecting planes 
Perspective from auditorium showing view of central park and chairs designed as intersecting planes 
5th Ave Facade Showing structural planes and partition walls intersecting