MRNY Community Center: Architecture for Social Justice

Make the Road New York (MRNY) has long been a home away from home for its many members. Thanks to an Andrea Steele Architecture project, this is no longer simply metaphorical, with the organization now occupying a permanent space to unite its community in a single location in New York.

With 23,000 members, MRNY works to achieve dignity and justice for disadvantaged communities and individuals, including immigrants, people of color, workers, and the LGBTQ+ community. Since its foundation in 1997, the organization has operated out of temporary and inefficient offices scattered across the city. This new project, however, has given this vital organization a clear spatial identity and voice.

Occupying a site in Queens adjacent to the elevated 7 train, the building responds to two key needs: increasing the organization’s visibility beyond its circle of members and providing MRNY’s community and staff with a stable and tangible point of reference.

MRNY Community Center: Integration into the public space

When viewed from outside, the project’s design objective of conceptually extending the public streetscape into the building is immediately obvious. Even before revealing its function, the building conveys the strong symbolic and identity value of the organization as a stable, inviting, family-like network.

Its integration into its urban setting takes place on multiple levels. The street façade showcases the central auditorium, which features a broad staircase that maintains visual and physical continuity with the street. An angled glazed wall gradually cuts into the line of the façade, offering an invitation to step inside. By guiding both the eye and movement inward, it helps dissolve the boundary with the exterior. The upper levels of the complex serve as a beacon, visible from the elevated train tracks.

The building’s location near Corona Park is also strategic from this perspective, with the many events and activities held there naturally extending into the building.

A vibrant place of welcome

The communicative simplicity of the design conceals a complex volumetric stratification that organizes the interiors functionally. The result of a participatory design process involving various stakeholders, the building is structured to enhance both the voice of the community and individual expression.

To ensure that the project offered an inviting atmosphere, a key goal was to provide ample natural light and greenery – both of which are often lacking in the homes and workplaces of members. This posed a major challenge given the elevated train’s imposing presence. Multiple glazed volumes and an inner courtyard effectively addressed this requirement, while creating bright, inviting spaces.

Accessed from the first floor, the auditorium straddles two levels. The bottom level houses communal spaces and legal and healthcare offices, while the upper level (the second floor) is home to private offices and communal gardens.

Embodying the essence of a community

An essential material palette of glass, metal, and exposed concrete conveys reliability and solidity. The color scheme has also been carefully chosen, with light, neutral tones interrupted by colors to signpost different functions and spaces.

An example is the colored volume that comprises the staircase, elevator, kitchens, and restrooms, which serves as a visual wayfinding marker across the three floors. Likewise, the decorative elements that define the auditorium – the large artworks above the glazed entrance and the mosaics on the terraced seating — powerfully convey MRNY’s identity and its commitment to social justice and advocacy.

The architecture, conceived by the firm as deeply human, embodies and amplifies the essence of a community that is already strong and firmly rooted in New York’s civic fabric, giving tangible form and voice to its identity.

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