Youths represent a dynamic yet precarious section of today’s populations. No longer belonging to safe spaces of childhood, but not yet, if ever, integrated into the expected paradigms of traditional family structures, a large portion of today’s youths while seemingly spontaneous in lifestyle choices and welcoming mobility, occupy the vulnerable spaces of the in-between and the prolonged interim. The project/exhibit will examine these and other selected specificities of youth dwelling in New York City as a way to provoke conversations on parallel and similar conditions around the globe.
The project investigates the spaces that youths reside in, as they intersect with sustained sociopolitical and economic uncertainties, inequalities, and emergent lifestyles. Considering the role of architecture in defining new ideals of domesticity in an ever-transforming public realm, the exhibition presents selected historical contexts and critical contemporary instances, and propositions for new spatial frameworks for the youth, dwelling, and the city.