Architecture creates secure, defined spaces. Boundaries in our urban environment divide and delimit neighborhoods and cultures. The Manhattan grid forms a rationale and linearity that orders these perimeters and orchestrates our movement between them. But what happens in the spaces that slip between these bounds? Within this residual, often overlooked and forbidden space lives a tangled web of untapped connectivity.

My thesis draws inspiration from Geoff Manaugh’s A Burglar’s Guide to the City, which looks at the urban landscape through the lens of a burglar—not their motivation or action but the way they move. Their “imaginative transgression” takes advantage of these formally ignored spaces. They repurpose a covert network, conceiving of new means of circulation, communication, and access. Analyzing blueprints of this creative misuse informs a new approach to design planning—one that engages with the void.

Weaving structure and program through existing facades, alleyways, vacant lots, and abandoned buildings, my thesis explores the interstitial spaces within the Manhattan block, uncovering a new streetscape. Through moments of uncertainty, discovery, and intrigue, I upend the prescriptions on movement that the grid perpetuates. Requiring pedestrians to consciously engage with their surroundings, the design promotes curious yet coherent wayfinding, breaking the monotony of the grid.

The site lies at the convergence of Lower East Side and Chinatown in downtown Manhattan. It is formed by the overlaying of a vacant lot, abandoned theater, and the interstitial space that winds through the block. Inverting notions of public and private space, the design employs materiality and perspective to reveal typically hidden spaces such as mechanical systems, vertical circulation, and the unfinished “back of the house.” By blurring these spatial divides, we question the way property lines, ownership, privacy, and access are defined.