Design Advocates
COVID-19 Pro-Bono Design Initiative
In the wake of the COVID-19 Global Pandemic, urban areas and the businesses that reside within them were particularly hard hit by the quarantines that robbed them of staff, customers, and revenue. In New York City, businesses faced the extraordinarily high costs of rent and staff payrolls coupled with locations that were largely located indoors in older buildings with non-existent or unsatisfactory ventilation.
The Design Advocates Group was formed initially as a resource for small design practices in New York City to share knowledge and resources. When firms began receiving government stimulus, the group pivoted to pair design firms with spare design capacity with small businesses and non-profits in the hardest hit areas of New York City.
The services provided by each firm is coordinated and shared with other design studios and clients to create prototypes that can be scaled and applied more rapidly with a deft design and urban planning focus to help shape New York City for a more pedestrian friendly and environmentally sustainable “new normal”.
Studio Modh has provided pro-bono design services to a variety of clients including two cafes in the Bedford Stuyvesant and Crown Heights neighborhoods of Brooklyn, a Sushi restaurant in Crown Heights, and a non-profit healthcare in downtown Brooklyn. Each project receives the same level of attention as any other project, focusing on learning the client’s operation intimately, proposing multiple options of solving for their service coupled with new COVID-19 challenges, and shepherding the design toward implementation.
Studio Modh also launched a Construction Professional matching initiative within Design Advocates, pairing fabricators and larger scale contractors with projects for execution without cost to the business owners. To date, Studio Modh has contributed over $100,000 in design services for free to the community of clients.
Brooklyn, NY
Ongoing, begun in 2020
2020 AIA Brooklyn / Queens Design Award 2020 AIA Brooklyn Chapter Design Award
Modular Prototype Design and Fabrication Workflow
Brooklyn, NY
To assist clients not accustomed to working with designers and contractors, a workflow process was included with introductory text to give the clients an understanding of the complexity and time it would take to deliver a solution on paper and then, later, as an executed solution.
Every decision reinforced the goal to provide cost-effective (or free if possible), durable, and functional solutions for the clients. In order to support as many businesses within the New York community as possible, solutions relied on products that could be purchased at local hardware stores and vendors and could be purchased and built on site if necessary. As such, solutions use common materials like cedar boards, pressure treated lumber, standard casters, and paint/sealers that can be painted or rolled on.
Le Paris Dakar Cafe
Brooklyn, NY
Like many of the client projects, the existing site is small and possesses only one door for entry and exit. In the context of COVID, this creates problematic overlapping circulation that the design attempts to temporarily correct using signage, barriers, and a critical re-evaluation of how service is delivered. The design also capitalizes on the city of New York’s expansion of sidewalk seating by installing a series of movable planters that create socially distant alcoves for diners.
A key tool in the process of designing a solution that can gently correct for the necessary restrictions of a COVID world is the circulation study diagram. This enables the design team to intimately understand how the service and customer flow works as well as where dense concentrations occur that can be diluted to reduce exposure. Inevitably, this conversation leads to a balance of design solutions with adjustments in the service model.
Planters create separation between active circulation and passive eating areas. The community began donating plants to the coffee shop as they began to be deployed.
Inside, the planters design language is converted to service units for condiments and other elements. The same clapboard language creates wall dividers at benches to create separate seating areas when indoor dining (in reduced percentages) returns.
In Fall 2020, Sciame Homes fabricated and installed the design at Le Paris Dakar. Clients have continued to flock to Mouna Thaim’s wonderful cafe (one of three in Bedford Stuyvesant and Crown Heights) and she has seen revenue increase since the installation of the new work.
Cafe Cotton Bean
Brooklyn, NY
Cafe Cotton Bean, in a short period of time, has become a fixture in the community. At the start of the pandemic, long lines of customers waiting to order, waiting to receive coffee, or waiting having placed an online order created confusion and - more troubling - breakdowns in social distancing. The design, in a limited footprint, uses a combination of the planter module systems and new graphic design to clarify the zones of service more directly.
The wayfinding emphasizes simple, bold graphics that communicates to customers the specific numeric steps to take when ordering, waiting, and receiving their coffee. Accommodating social distancing of those waiting, seated at a small outdoor table area, and the passing pedestrian on the sidewalk is a careful choreography. Similar to the building materials for the planters, the graphics rely on cost effective, easily replaceable, online printed screens and vinyl signs that the client can re-order as necessary.
Outside, a small set of tables is arrayed between a pair of planters that are mounted on casters to enable the service staff to pull the units inside at night. A duplicate unit is located inside to draw the eye in.
A new site-built divider and storage unit accomplished two important goals: separating ordering from pickup to speed the exit of customers, and pushing customers further away from the service staff for social distancing. A platform was built to display food offerings behind plastic as well as to create a new coffee delivery shelf.
In Fall 2020, Sciame Homes fabricated and installed the design at Cafe Cotton Bean. Over the months, customers have enjoyed the outdoor seating and the Owner of Cafe Cotton Bean, Mayumi Maeda, has continued to operate her neighborhood fixture in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
Uotora Sushi Restaurant
Brooklyn, NY
Perhaps the biggest loss for this small restaurant was the inability to utilize the intimate sushi bar that represented 50% of their seating capacity pre-COVID. This drove the need to expand the footprint of the dining area into the parking lane as well as into the adjacent coffee shop the studio designed a COVID system for .
The overall view shows the deployment of the planter modules throughout and the manner by which the system pairs well with the adjacent Design Advocates Client, Cafe Cotton Bean. Since both establishments have staggered hours (coffee shop in morning and early afternoon, restaurant in the evenings)
Because of the adjacency to the roadway, the design employs the use of water filled traffic barriers for protection. A simple timber structure is anchored to the planter dividers and is unified with a series of sloped canvas fabric shades.
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