Designed by architecture students, Ian M. Ellis and Frances Peterson, their proposal for the North Brother Island School for Autistic Children in New York City aims to provide a necessary resource for the Bronx, which is heavily underserved in terms of school for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The project is also designed with the intention that it will dissolve the negative stigma of the island, stabilize its naturalized growth as habitat for the birds, and introduce research and education programs to provide a cutting edge learning environment for the public, parents, and children. More images and architects’ description after the break.
This project is a proposal for an inclusionary learning school for Autistic children on North Brother Island – an abandoned medical facility in New York’s East River. Since 1885, the a 20-acre island has been a quarantine zone, hospital for infectious disease, tuberculosis sanatorium, container of Typhoid Mary, site of a disastrous shipwreck, drug rehabilitation center, and housing for World War II soldiers. The Island’s functions ceased in 1963 – abandoned since. Due to its seclusion and over 50 years of natural decay and growth, North Brother became the home for many colonial water birds, notably the Black Crowned Night Heron. Vegetation has aggressively taken hold of the island and its buildings. However, the nesting habits of the birds have decreased, if not vanished entirely. The birds are, on the other hand, still nesting on the much smaller and adjacent South Brother Island.
