Z.01.N.E

Drawing from Coney Island’s history of immersive spectacle and controlled illusions, this project envisions a casino that blurs the boundaries between surveillance and privacy, chaos and calm, and the familiar and the unknown. Designed to secure New York’s final available casino license, the project introduces a secondary program: a labyrinth of meditative spaces that challenge conventional casino design and provide moments of release within an otherwise high-intensity environment.
These meditative spaces and circulation are embedded within an enigmatic object, contrasting with the structured architecture of the casino. The design consists of three floating volumes that rely on this object for circulation, creating deliberate moments of spatial pause and heightened awareness.
Incorporating AI-generated design processes, the project embraces both the biases and unpredictability of these tools. Just as AI introduces uncertainty in design, the casino integrates the unknown object as a mediator of experience and space. This parallel between AI’s indeterminate outcomes and the labyrinth’s mystery reflects a broader exploration of how designers negotiate emerging technologies while maintaining agency over the design process.