"City of Nothing // Island of Everything : Park Avenue Elevaiton" by William Bayram Declan Wagstaff
 Christopher McCallum 

As a unique urban context, Manhattan settles itself within the dichotomy of a city and island. Its individuality, yet connectivity, thrives for greater density as the catalyst of the containment of the strange. This architectural manifestation of estrangement shares a duality between pragmatic and fantastical, thus the city cannot help lend itself to the thinking of both creative endeavours. The containing of this architecture within the restriction of an island splits between the seen/unseen, vertical/horizontal, overworld/underworld comparisons. Here, the island finds itself a blended world of consumption, sustainability, cultural and political iconicity. Yet for all the island’s architectural accumulation, what it has to show for itself is non-material, therefore through the consumption and containment of everything it presents and trades nothing. This thesis seeks to explore this territory of estrangement through two narrative threads of thinking, the Pragmatic and the Fantastical which find themselves at times separate or intertwined.