Jacqueline Atencio Cruz

A dap-ay is a circle drawn on the ground, large enough to fit people inside. It is roughly the size of a room. It is many things- a stage for announcements, a firepit to gather around, a drinking circle with one table, a threshing floor with a tool bench, a stand for a trial, a stage for ritual. The edge is important, and the center is important. Eventually, the drawn circle became a stone platform, with seats along its edge, and a hearth at its center. 

Plan drawings, though abstract, are neither static nor neutral. 

Houses imply the design of a floor plan. We live in plans, even if they aren’t physically drawn on the ground. Plans reify many things- class, gender, family, money, belief, ritual and community. 

Cities imply the design of a city plan. In the Home Owner’s Loan Corporation’s redlining maps, the desirability of neighborhoods is color-coded, in-plan, based on income and the number of minorities living there. 

This thesis looks to a different lineage of plan-making, beyond its historical impetus as a perspective of control. The plan view has not always been a view from above. 

The thesis is a response to the city’s plans to build a 90,000 square foot community center park at the center of the Jordan Downs, a historically redlined community in Watts. The proposal is conceived of as light infrastructure, loosely hosting the neighborhood’s existing community programs and rituals. It is comprised of three marketplaces with three distinct characters- a basketball court, a kitchen, and a laundry hall.