Silence

Since 1915, DUMBO has generated 82 decibels of noise from Manhattan Bridge trains, 30 decibels above typical urban daytime levels. That isn't a minor inconvenience.
This acoustic crisis remains persistant to visitors who come for the iconic view on Washington Street. Meanwhile, residents do not have this problem. They have solved it through high-end windows, acoustic insulation, and soundproofing. For everyone else, the bridge offers a photograph at a tax of defining constant noise. The neighborhood’s acoustic crisis reveals a deeper inequality: not everyone can
afford to experience the same environment with equal comfort and agency.

We propose a temporary public installation that offers what the neighborhood cannot provide equally: refuge. A soundproofed glass apartment, ten feet in the air on a steel frame, furnished like a studio. Visitors enter at five-minute intervals and experience the bridge in complete silence. The decibel level drops from 82 to 43.

This installation doesn’t obscure the view. It completes it. By temporarily offering refuge to everyone, we reveal what’s been privatized: the
right to experience one’s environment on one’s own terms. The installation asks a simple question: What if everyone could access refuge in DUMBO?