public address

New York, NY + Brooklyn, NY

2025 – Ongoing

New York City remains the only municipality in the United States to guarantee the right to shelter, a commitment established through decades of advocacy and litigation. Public Address, conceived by artist Alex Strada, is a citywide public artwork that centers the lived experience of those most impacted by housing insecurity. The project establishes a dialogue with New York City, affirming access to temporary shelter as a basic right while also exposing the limits of such provision in addressing deeper crises of affordability, displacement, and care.

During the run of the exhibition, five large-scale installations—one per borough—will rotate through city parks. Currently on view at Brooklyn’s Columbus Park. More on the exhibition here.

Designed for manual handling and flexible assembly, base blocks for the installation are conceived as a family of seven concrete units proportioned to be carried by two people, each weighing approximately 150 pounds, installed without the need for heavy machinery. Each block type varies in geometry to allow multiple configurations for different urban furniture, enabling both structural and spatial variation. When assembled, the blocks can be connected using custom steel band-aids that connect the units together. This system makes possible the construction of safe and regulation approved reconfigurable structures using only human-scale effort.

Designed for Alex Strada

Organized by Storefront for Art and Architecture

Fabrication: Chris Zirbes and the Department of Transportation Sign Shop