Unfolding Labor on Mott St
Unfolding Labor on Mott St reimagines utilitarian spaces related to the lifecycle of fabric as sites of artistic inquiry and social gathering. This project challenges the historical repression of domestic labor—washing, folding laundry, making, and cleaning dishes—traditionally tied to the feminine role of maintaining household order, by bringing these acts to the forefront of architectural configuration. At the same time, the project speaks to the history of fabric-making in Manhattan’s Chinatown, where immigrant wives sustained their households through garment production. Generations of immigrants, not limited to Chinese immigrants, but also Jewish, Polish, and Italian immigrant housewives, turned part of their domestic setting into fabric workshops. However, due to globalization and the aftermath of 9/11, union factories that once operated within tenement apartments were gradually displaced—either moved outside Manhattan or relocated beyond the U.S. Part of the cultural narrative that speaks to the resilience of the productive and reproductive labor that took place in a domestic setting in Chinatown is concealed and lost.
The project aims to revive this narrative and re-establish the social significance of domestic labor through spatial organization and tectonic expression. It challenges the traditional notion of laundry spaces—either as laundromats, public facilities used solely for utilitarian purposes with little room for social interaction, or as hidden appliances tucked away in domestic closets, concealing the labor, time, and care involved. By redefining the laundromat as a communal, participatory environment that fosters interaction through tactile materials, interactive objects, and opportunities for collective creativity, the project elevates the mundane into a space of cultural and social exchange.
The tactility of fabric generates a dual rhetoric: first, as a means of restoring and actively engaging with labor through the embodied practices of weaving and washing; second, as a tectonic expression in architecture that both encloses and partitions space. Fabric is integrated into both the exterior façade and interior spatial screens - both incorporating a weaving pattern. An exterior screen system is developed as the facade of 41, 53, and 55 Mott Street and storefronts of the site, creating thresholds of entry and moments of visual revelation through exposed laundry. A drying rack system is embedded within this exterior screen, inviting people to bring and dry their clothes in public—a particularly meaningful social gesture in a densely populated city like New York. Inside, fabric is employed as part of an interior screen system that serves both as a spatial divider—separating communal areas of kitchen and laundry facilities from the dwelling units while maintaining visual connection through its transparency—and as a hanging rack for clothes, reinforcing the interplay between function, ritual, and spatial design.
Through the reconfiguration of spatial order, the exposure of fabric, and the revealing of the lifecycle revolved around fabric, as an architectural tectonic gesture in both interior and exterior contexts, this design project repositions the laundromat as a liminal zone where architecture, art, and everyday life converge. It challenges conventional paradigms and contributes to contemporary discourse on participatory design, relational aesthetics, and the democratization of art-making.
Left images:
(1) Street View along Mott Street.
(2) Corner of Mott and Bayard Streets.
(3) Laundry-Drying Balcony;
(4) Street-Corner Communal Laundromat.
(5) Indoor Communal Laundry and Social Room in the Renovated Lee Association Building.
(6) Interior View of Bedroom towards the Balcony.
(7) Axon View of Facade Intervention.
(8) Street Elevation & Section.(9) Lee Association Floor Plans.(10) Ground Floor Programatic Plan.
Below images:
Physical model.
Spring 2025, collab with Stephanie Rosas.
Instructor: Lyndon Neri.
![]()
Unfolding Labor on Mott St reimagines utilitarian spaces related to the lifecycle of fabric as sites of artistic inquiry and social gathering. This project challenges the historical repression of domestic labor—washing, folding laundry, making, and cleaning dishes—traditionally tied to the feminine role of maintaining household order, by bringing these acts to the forefront of architectural configuration. At the same time, the project speaks to the history of fabric-making in Manhattan’s Chinatown, where immigrant wives sustained their households through garment production. Generations of immigrants, not limited to Chinese immigrants, but also Jewish, Polish, and Italian immigrant housewives, turned part of their domestic setting into fabric workshops. However, due to globalization and the aftermath of 9/11, union factories that once operated within tenement apartments were gradually displaced—either moved outside Manhattan or relocated beyond the U.S. Part of the cultural narrative that speaks to the resilience of the productive and reproductive labor that took place in a domestic setting in Chinatown is concealed and lost.
The project aims to revive this narrative and re-establish the social significance of domestic labor through spatial organization and tectonic expression. It challenges the traditional notion of laundry spaces—either as laundromats, public facilities used solely for utilitarian purposes with little room for social interaction, or as hidden appliances tucked away in domestic closets, concealing the labor, time, and care involved. By redefining the laundromat as a communal, participatory environment that fosters interaction through tactile materials, interactive objects, and opportunities for collective creativity, the project elevates the mundane into a space of cultural and social exchange.
The tactility of fabric generates a dual rhetoric: first, as a means of restoring and actively engaging with labor through the embodied practices of weaving and washing; second, as a tectonic expression in architecture that both encloses and partitions space. Fabric is integrated into both the exterior façade and interior spatial screens - both incorporating a weaving pattern. An exterior screen system is developed as the facade of 41, 53, and 55 Mott Street and storefronts of the site, creating thresholds of entry and moments of visual revelation through exposed laundry. A drying rack system is embedded within this exterior screen, inviting people to bring and dry their clothes in public—a particularly meaningful social gesture in a densely populated city like New York. Inside, fabric is employed as part of an interior screen system that serves both as a spatial divider—separating communal areas of kitchen and laundry facilities from the dwelling units while maintaining visual connection through its transparency—and as a hanging rack for clothes, reinforcing the interplay between function, ritual, and spatial design.
Through the reconfiguration of spatial order, the exposure of fabric, and the revealing of the lifecycle revolved around fabric, as an architectural tectonic gesture in both interior and exterior contexts, this design project repositions the laundromat as a liminal zone where architecture, art, and everyday life converge. It challenges conventional paradigms and contributes to contemporary discourse on participatory design, relational aesthetics, and the democratization of art-making.
Left images:
(1) Street View along Mott Street.
(2) Corner of Mott and Bayard Streets.
(3) Laundry-Drying Balcony;
(4) Street-Corner Communal Laundromat.
(5) Indoor Communal Laundry and Social Room in the Renovated Lee Association Building.
(6) Interior View of Bedroom towards the Balcony.
(7) Axon View of Facade Intervention.
(8) Street Elevation & Section.(9) Lee Association Floor Plans.(10) Ground Floor Programatic Plan.
Below images:
Physical model.
Spring 2025, collab with Stephanie Rosas.
Instructor: Lyndon Neri.
Currently in New York / New Jersey
© Elina Chen 2026