While the contributions of day laborers typically go unseen, most cities’ inability to accommodate them within the urban infrastructure is highly visible. Day laborers’ role in the informal economy has forced them to occupy spaces meant for other uses, such as street corners, gas stations, and home improvement store parking lots. A relatively small number of officially sanctioned day labor centers have appeared in recent years, but the informal gathering sites remain the norm. These sites are far from being ideal; their presence in spaces designated for other uses means that they often lack even the most basic of amenities (shelter, water, toilet facilities, etc). The Day Labor Station is a project that we are developing to address the needs of a community that traditionally has not had access to quality design environments.

The station is a simple, flexible structure that can be deployed at these informal day labor locations. It is a self-sustaining project that will utilize green materials and strategies and will exist primarily--if not completely--off the grid. Our design is based on the realities of the ways in which the day labor system operates, and responds to the needs and desires of the day laborers themselves, as our clients. As such, the structure will be flexible enough to serve various uses, including as an employment center, meeting space, and classroom.

A portion of the first prototype of the Day Labor Station will be on display at the “Design for the Other 90%” exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York, now on view through September 23, 2007.

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