GRI.D is the R&D project of Danny Griffin, a search for specific arrangements of Elements through considerately guided Actions and precisely steered Actuations
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Palace of Joy
People’s Pool
Coney Island, NYC
2 Week Design Competition, 1st Place
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Core II Studio
Instructors: Mariana Ibañez, Liam O’Brien, Rosalyne Shieh
Collaborators: Ana Macintosh, Alice Jia Li Song
How does narrative embody monumentality?
Recounted as a memory in Rem Koolhaas’ Delirious New York, the “Palace of Joy” exists only as fragments of memory and imagination. Though the project was never completed, its monumentality persists in recollections and momentos: an architecture whose presence extends beyond built form. Through perspective drawings and trinket-making, we take an anachronistic journey to the iconic bathhouse of Coney Island to explore the entanglement of narrative and form.
Massing Model, Thermoformed PETG
Perspective: First Sight
Proliferation of iconography, signage, and advertisement
embedded the Palace into the whimsical mythos of Coney
Island. Over time this idealized monumentality allowed the
project to “realize” a sense of grandeur far beyond the
possibilities of physical manifestation.
Model Index: Exploring Monumentality in Form
Perspective: Street View
Perspective: Navigation
Commemorating the 1961 crowning of the Palace of Joy as the “People’s Pool,” the memorial trophy distills the monumental structure into a selection of its most iconic parts.
Perspective: Souvenir
