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The Perch

At the edge of Liberty State Park, a new vision for architectural reuse takes flight: a bird rehabilitation and education center situated within the historic terminal once defined by human transit and industrial flow. This transformation reimagines a space of departure and arrival as a site of healing—for both birds and the communities that surround them. Through a series of layered landscapes—wetlands, meadows, forest edges—the project supports species-specific recovery while inviting the public into a quiet choreography of observation, learning, and care. The architecture neither hides nor erases the terminal’s past. Instead, it embraces the building’s monumental shell as a porous framework through which new ecologies take root. Fragments of the original structure become nesting towers, shade devices, or acoustic buffers, allowing birds to recuperate while coexisting with human presence. Circulation is choreographed to balance accessibility with restraint—paths alternate between open viewing areas and screened corridors, offering moments of both exposure and withdrawal. This project responds not only to ecological urgency, but to social inequity. Birds are sensitive indicators of environmental change, and their declining presence in marginalized neighborhoods reflects broader patterns of spatial injustice. By making avian care public and accessible, the project fosters a renewed understanding of interdependence—between species, across systems, and within the shared fabric of the urban future.