The Verandah as a Living Archive: What The Water Remembers
Jahlik Parkes
2026 Summer Residency
ABOUT THE PROJECT
The Verandah as a Living Archive asks a simple question: What if architecture preserved memory the way people do—through gathering, storytelling, making, and sharing meals?
Inspired by the Jamaican verandah, the project reimagines this familiar domestic space as a contemporary civic structure. Traditionally, the verandah exists between the home and the street, neither fully inside nor outside. It is where neighbors pause, families gather, elders teach, music drifts, meals are shared, and everyday life unfolds. Rather than treating architecture as static enclosure, this project understands it as a living social infrastructure—one that continually evolves through use, ritual, and collective participation.
The installation is centered around a communal table that serves as both furniture and the structural foundation of a future pavilion. Constructed from reclaimed lumber and storm-fallen branches collected on Governors Island, the table embraces the individuality of each branch, allowing the natural forms of the landscape to shape the architecture rather than forcing uniformity upon it. As the first inhabitable fragment of a larger structure, it invites visitors to imagine architecture as something that grows through relationships—with people, place, and material.
Surrounding the table are suspended textile drawings that extend the architecture into space. Hand-dyed using natural indigo and clay harvested from the Hudson Valley, the fabrics transform the landscape into both medium and collaborator. Printed and drawn onto these textiles are architectural studies, sketches, maps, and fragments of research that trace the project's evolution while recalling cloth's enduring role as a vessel for memory, labor, and cultural knowledge across the African diaspora.
The table itself becomes another archive. Its surface is printed with illustrations of Governors Island's flora and fauna alongside plants and ecological knowledge that have long sustained Black and Caribbean communities, revealing continuities between New York Harbor and the wider Black Atlantic. Oyster shells appear throughout the installation—in clay studies, material experiments, and architectural fragments—as both ecological artifact and building material. Once foundational to New York Harbor's ecosystems and economies, they speak to cycles of nourishment, extraction, restoration, and resilience while acknowledging the intertwined histories of Indigenous stewardship, Black labor, and coastal life.
Rather than presenting a finished object, The Verandah as a Living Archive reveals architecture as an ongoing process of listening, making, and gathering. Every drawing, conversation, shared meal, material experiment, and act of participation becomes part of the archive itself, proposing that architecture's greatest capacity lies not simply in what it builds, but in what it remembers and what it enables communities to create together.
Inspired by the Jamaican verandah, the project reimagines this familiar domestic space as a contemporary civic structure. Traditionally, the verandah exists between the home and the street, neither fully inside nor outside. It is where neighbors pause, families gather, elders teach, music drifts, meals are shared, and everyday life unfolds. Rather than treating architecture as static enclosure, this project understands it as a living social infrastructure—one that continually evolves through use, ritual, and collective participation.
The installation is centered around a communal table that serves as both furniture and the structural foundation of a future pavilion. Constructed from reclaimed lumber and storm-fallen branches collected on Governors Island, the table embraces the individuality of each branch, allowing the natural forms of the landscape to shape the architecture rather than forcing uniformity upon it. As the first inhabitable fragment of a larger structure, it invites visitors to imagine architecture as something that grows through relationships—with people, place, and material.
Surrounding the table are suspended textile drawings that extend the architecture into space. Hand-dyed using natural indigo and clay harvested from the Hudson Valley, the fabrics transform the landscape into both medium and collaborator. Printed and drawn onto these textiles are architectural studies, sketches, maps, and fragments of research that trace the project's evolution while recalling cloth's enduring role as a vessel for memory, labor, and cultural knowledge across the African diaspora.
The table itself becomes another archive. Its surface is printed with illustrations of Governors Island's flora and fauna alongside plants and ecological knowledge that have long sustained Black and Caribbean communities, revealing continuities between New York Harbor and the wider Black Atlantic. Oyster shells appear throughout the installation—in clay studies, material experiments, and architectural fragments—as both ecological artifact and building material. Once foundational to New York Harbor's ecosystems and economies, they speak to cycles of nourishment, extraction, restoration, and resilience while acknowledging the intertwined histories of Indigenous stewardship, Black labor, and coastal life.
Rather than presenting a finished object, The Verandah as a Living Archive reveals architecture as an ongoing process of listening, making, and gathering. Every drawing, conversation, shared meal, material experiment, and act of participation becomes part of the archive itself, proposing that architecture's greatest capacity lies not simply in what it builds, but in what it remembers and what it enables communities to create together.
JAHLIK PARKES ON HIS PROCESS AND EXPERIENCE AS A FELLOW:
“The project evolved significantly during residency, what began as a proposal for a larger pavilion gradually transformed through direct engagement with Governors Island’s landscape, its history, and the conversations that unfolded throughout the residency.
Working almost exclusively with materials found on the island—including storm-fallen branches, reclaimed lumber, oyster shells, clay, and other natural materials—shifted the design process away from predetermined forms toward a more responsive mode of making. Instead of imposing geometry onto the site, the architecture emerged through careful observation of each material’s inherent qualities. The branches became structural elements, their natural curvature informing the rhythm of the future pavilion while challenging conventional ideas of architectural precision.
Public engagement became equally influential. Through open studios, community workshops, clay-making sessions, and conversations with visitors, the project expanded beyond the construction of an object into the cultivation of relationships. These exchanges reinforced the understanding that architecture is not complete when construction ends; it continues through occupation, storytelling, maintenance, and shared experience.
Governors Island itself became an active collaborator. Situated within the histories of the Black Atlantic, migration, military occupation, ecological restoration, and public access, the island offered a layered context for investigating how landscapes accumulate memory over time. These histories deepened the project’s central premise that architecture can function as a living archive—one capable of holding ecological, cultural, and personal narratives simultaneously.
The resulting installation intentionally remains a prototype rather than a finished pavilion. The communal table represents the first inhabitable fragment of a larger vision, demonstrating a structural language that can continue to evolve beyond the residency. In this sense, the residency has not concluded the project; it has established its foundation for future iterations in new communities and new landscapes.”
Working almost exclusively with materials found on the island—including storm-fallen branches, reclaimed lumber, oyster shells, clay, and other natural materials—shifted the design process away from predetermined forms toward a more responsive mode of making. Instead of imposing geometry onto the site, the architecture emerged through careful observation of each material’s inherent qualities. The branches became structural elements, their natural curvature informing the rhythm of the future pavilion while challenging conventional ideas of architectural precision.
Public engagement became equally influential. Through open studios, community workshops, clay-making sessions, and conversations with visitors, the project expanded beyond the construction of an object into the cultivation of relationships. These exchanges reinforced the understanding that architecture is not complete when construction ends; it continues through occupation, storytelling, maintenance, and shared experience.
Governors Island itself became an active collaborator. Situated within the histories of the Black Atlantic, migration, military occupation, ecological restoration, and public access, the island offered a layered context for investigating how landscapes accumulate memory over time. These histories deepened the project’s central premise that architecture can function as a living archive—one capable of holding ecological, cultural, and personal narratives simultaneously.
The resulting installation intentionally remains a prototype rather than a finished pavilion. The communal table represents the first inhabitable fragment of a larger vision, demonstrating a structural language that can continue to evolve beyond the residency. In this sense, the residency has not concluded the project; it has established its foundation for future iterations in new communities and new landscapes.”
People
