Food scarcity in New York follows a sharp seasonal rhythm, most visibly affecting children during summer break when school meal programs pause. At the same time, urban farms experience peak production and temporary employment in summer, followed by a steep decline in both harvest and labor opportunities in late fall. The project begins with this imbalance and explores how architecture might mediate between cycles of abundance and scarcity.

Located between a neighborhood church and the Crispus Attucks Playground in Brooklyn, the building is conceived as a layered urban metabolism. A solid two-story base accommodates public services, food storage, cooperative workspaces, and distribution programs. Above it, a broad terrace becomes a civic foodscape—an accessible platform for cultivation, gathering, and seasonal community use that visually extends the playground into the site.

Anchored within this terraced landscape is a greenhouse partially embedded in the base and partially extending into the void of the elevated L-shaped residential volume. Optimized for natural lighting, this greenhouse enables year-round production: food crops during times of scarcity, and economic crops when food demand is lower. The space simultaneously functions as a community cafeteria, winter garden, and flexible hall for neighborhood events, including those hosted by the adjacent churches.

Rather than treating agriculture as an amenity, the project proposes it as civic infrastructure—supporting continuous cycles of production, labor, and care. Urban Metabolism remains an exploration of how housing can participate in, and ultimately reinforce, the temporal and social rhythms of the community it serves.