Cutie-o is a gesture of care that directly engages people by creating a space that gathers and facilitates moments of exchange. Like the undefined boundaries of Chinatown, Cutie-o takes on the urban form of its context and blurs, softens, and dissolves the boundaries between caring and cared for. It continuously nurtures experiences of lived in space by propagating moments of exchange between people in the neighborhood. Under the domes of Cutie-o’s, an informal ‘drop-in’ space, users of this space work collectively to brainstorm ideas about the future of their neighborhood. The space engages the community in the planning and design processes, ensuring that the future spaces of the neighborhood reflect their needs and aspirations. Through community-driven spaces, Cutie-o’s’ programming responds to the urban vernacular of the area as self-designing and place-keeping.
In the next speculative step, the project aims to transcend the boundaries of existing systems of economy, ownership, and power by inserting itself into such systems and propagating throughout the city to provide care. This insertion creates conversation spaces in unoccupied floors of high-rise residential buildings, provoking alternative ways of weaving unused spaces into the social fabric of the communities through democratic interactions, participatory processes, and inclusive conversations.
