THE BEACON

Located at the intersection of Malcolm X Boulevard and Fulton Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, this temporary public installation transforms a privately owned public plaza into a space for gathering, reflection, and collective storytelling. Situated within a sunken circular plaza adjacent to major transit connections, the project responds to the site’s role as both a destination and a crossroads within the neighborhood.

The design is guided by four core principles: responding to the geometry and context of the site, enhancing the public realm through light, celebrating the neighborhood’s Black history and cultural legacy, and co-creating meaningful content with the community.

The installation draws upon two powerful and historically significant geometries: the cross and the circle. Throughout history, the cross has symbolized intersections, meeting points, pathways, and places of discovery. It can also represent absence, a missing piece of a story or identity. Within African American history, the letter “X” became a powerful symbol of self-determination and the rejection of names imposed through enslavement.

The circle, by contrast, embodies continuity, unity, and collective participation. As a spatial form, it encourages gathering and interaction. Within the philosophy of Ubuntu ”I am because we are” the circle represents the interconnected nature of community and shared experience.

The project brings these two geometries together through three identical sculptural elements arranged in a circular formation. When viewed from specific vantage points aligned with the primary approaches to the plaza, the elements visually combine to reveal the letter X. As visitors move through the plaza, the composition continuously shifts, emphasizing both the strength of the individual elements and the new possibilities that emerge through connection and collective presence.

Designed as multifunctional urban furniture, the structures serve as landmarks, gathering points, and educational platforms.

Frosted acrylic surfaces integrated into each element illuminate the plaza after dark, improving visibility and fostering a welcoming nighttime environment with motion-responsive sensors, allowing visitors to influence the atmosphere. The reverse side of each element supports community-generated graphics developed through an inclusive design process. While sharing a common visual language, each surface highlights a distinct layer of neighborhood identity. One celebrates Black historical figures through text. Another maps the plaza’s relationship to Bed-Stuy and Brooklyn, strengthening connections between place, memory, and belonging. The third element functions as a living community canvas, evolving through the addition of locally inspired symbols rooted in graffiti culture and Adinkra traditions.

Supported by Urban Design Forum, NYC Department of Small Business Services (SBS)

Project in collaborations with:

GrowHouse Design and Development Group, Inc. ;

SITU Fabrication;

ARUP;

Stephanie Johnson;

ASA project team: Andrea Steele, Nuria Heras Diez, Dichen Ding, Tristan Gong