Eat Well & Live Well

Contributors

Haoyuan Kuang (M.S. AUD '25)
Yuchun Zhang (M.S. AUD '25)

Class

ARCH 7132 Studio II: Application

In Flushing and Willets Point, street vending and wetlands, two essential forces missing from dominant planning, have long sustained everyday life, both culturally and ecologically. Despite their contributions, these systems remain undervalued in urban development processes dominated by private capital and top-down planning. Eat Well & Live Well begins with a simple proposition: What if the people who cook, clean, grow, and care — street vendors, local residents, and ecological stewards — had greater stakes in shaping the city’s future?

This project introduces two land trusts — one for vendors, one for wetlands. The vendor trust supports shared kitchens, legal assistance, and safer vending zones. The wetland trust secures public paths, flood storage, and learning spaces. Together, they anchor key sites like a church-run weekday market, a vendor support plaza, and a connected vendor-wetland corridor. Rather than proposing a single monumental solution, this project builds an incremental, self-organizing system rooted in everyday life. By anchoring urban development in care-based economies and environmental stewardship, Eat Well & Live Well offers a grounded, plural vision for collective urban transformation.