Wednesday> Architect Srdjan Weiss Examines Viennese Housing at the Austrian Cultural Forum
New low-density housing in a Vienna suburb.
The exhibit, The Vienna Model: Housing for the 21st Century City, currently on view at the Austrian Cultural Forum, is meant to provoke a discussion with housing advocates in this country. The Forum will host weekly tours of the exhibit by a variety of housing experts from various academic and professional fields. This Wednesday, the tour will be led by Srdjan Weiss, a Serbian-born architect and theorist based in New York City, with broad knowledge of the subject of housing in this country and Eastern Europe. The tour will be based on Weiss’ parallel living experience and expertise in housing design from former socialist countries of Eastern Europe and Yugoslavia.
Four new affordable housing projects in Philadelphia will receive almost $1 million in grant money. Congressman Chaka Fattah announced last month that the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh’s Affordable Housing Program will provide grants of over $200,000 to sponsors of projects that are dedicated to housing veterans, homeless families, and the mentally ill. According to The Daily Pennsylvanian, FHL Bank will take new applicants for its grant program starting July 8th, and announce the winning sponsors for 2013 on December 19th. (Photo: Courtesy People’s Emergency Center)
Via Verde 2.0? Bloomberg Seeks Developer For Last City-Owned Lots in the Bronx
The Site of the Bronxchester Project at Bergen Street, Brook Avenue and East 149th Street. (Courtesy Bing Maps)
With his time in office coming to a close, Mayor Bloomberg is moving swiftly ahead with his administration’s affordable housing plan, and calling on developers to submit proposals to build on the last sizable stretch of vacant city-owned land in the Melrose and HUB area of the South Bronx. The NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD) is overseeing the Bronxchester Project, and yesterday announced a Request for Proposal (RFP) to develop two parcels into affordable housing and mixed-use space.
Development is soon on the horizon for Hudson Square, the 18-block area sandwiched between Soho and Tribeca. Yesterday New York City Council approved the Hudson Square rezoning, which entails raising the allowable building height to pave the way for more residential and mixed-use development. The city was able to finagle more affordable housing and open space throughout the approval process. From the get-go, preservationists have feared that development will seep into the South Village and have pressed the city to landmark the entire district. City Council has worked out a deal with Landmarks Preservation Commission to vote on the northern section of South Village by the end of the year.
Related Breaks Ground on Two SHoP-Designed Towers at Hunters Point South
Rendering of Hunters Point South. (Courtesy SHoP Architects)
While everyone is transfixed on SHoP’s dramatic unveiling of its new plan for the Domino Sugar Factory on the Brooklyn waterfront, another SHoP-designed project began construction to the north on the Queens waterfront. The first two towers of the Hunters Point South development, what will be New York City’s largest affordable housing project since the 1970s, broke ground, and the $332-million first phase could accept its first residents as soon as 2014. The first phase includes 925 permanently-affordable housing units, 17,000 square feet of retail space, an already-under-construction 1,100-seat school, and a new five-acre park.
NYCHA’s Green Thumb: New Affordable Housing Complex Opens With Rooftop Farm
(Courtesy NYC Housing Development Corporation)
It has been a rocky few months for the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), but the battered agency finally has some good news to report. State officials announced the opening of the Arbor House, a 124-unit affordable housing complex, located in the Morrisania section of the Bronx, that is not only LEED Platinum certified, but also features a hydroponic farm on the roof that supplies residents and the surrounding community with fresh produce. Built from local and recycled materials, the 8-story building was designed by New York-based ABS Architecture and includes a living green wall installation in the lobby, air-filtration systems, and indoor and outdoor exercise areas.
Wallace Roberts & Todd Designs Affordable Housing for LGBT Seniors in Philadelphia
Rendering of the John C. Anderson Apartments. (Courtesy WRT)
A new affordable housing project designed by Wallace Roberts & Todd (WRT) is in the works for Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender (LGBT) seniors in the City of Brotherly Love—it will be the second of its kind in the nation. Hidden Philadelphia reported that construction on this 56-unit complex, called the John C. Anderson Apartments, has already commenced and will be located on 13th Street right in the heart of the Washington Square West neighborhood, a part of Philadelphia that has long been home to a gay and lesbian community. The development is named after city councilman John C. Anderson who was “instrumental in the passage of Philadelphia’s civil rights bill for sexual minority people.”
New York City Council Gives Bjarke Ingels’ “Courtscraper” the Green Light
West 57th (Courtesy of BIG)
It took some negotiating, but New York City Council has approved Durst Fetner’s plans to build West 57th, a 750-unit residential development designed by Danish architect, Bjarke Ingels. Crain’s reported that the 32-story pyramidal “courtscraper,” sandwiched between 11th Avenue and the Hudson River, will consist of 750 rental apartments, with an additional 100 units in a converted industrial building.
An early point of contention stemmed from what city council viewed as an inadequate plan for income-restricted housing, which will only be affordable for 35 years. While Durst Fetner didn’t budge on this issue, they did agree to donate $1 million to an affordable housing fund.
Quick Clicks> Bordeaux Dynamo, Concrete Castle, and a Humble Abode
Stade Bordeaux Atlantique by Herzog & de Meuron (Courtesy Dezeen)
Bordeaux Dynamo. Herzog & de Meuron designed a new stadium, the Stade Bordeaux Atlantique for the UEFA Euro 2016 in France. According the the architects, the “diaphanous volume looks out onto the grand landscape, its transparency revealing all the energy and activities which will fill this new symbol of the city of Bordeaux’s dynamism.” Via Dezeen.
Big Bunker Castle. According to Curbed, Steven Huff, chairman of TF Concrete Forming Systems, is building a 72,000-square-foot personal concrete manse called Pensmore. Located on 500 acres in Missouri, the reinforced concrete chateau is built to resist the regions rough weather. “The whole house is in essence a storm shelter,” said the Pensmore web site.
Humble Abode. If 72,000 square feet is a little too big for your tastes, Treehugger found a slightly smaller abode proposed by TATA, the same company that launched the $2500 car in India. For 32,000 rupees, or about $720, you can have your own house, clocking in at just over 200 square feet. The company hopes the new dwellings, along with an ultra-affordable $7,800 apartment, will help ameliorate India’s growing housing problems in poor communities.
Scarpa is King of the World (Updated!)
Colorado Court (Courtesy Brooks & Scarpa)
[ Updated 02.08.2011: Added the interview video, a gallery of Scarpa's 502 Colorado project, and more. ]
You know you’ve hit the big time when you’re not only invited to appear on Oprah, but you’re interviewed by Leonard DiCaprio on Oprah. Such is the case with Larry Scarpa, of Santa Monica firm Brooks + Scarpa, who talked to Leo about his former firm Pugh + Scarpa’s 502 Colorado in Santa Monica, which DiCaprio calls the “first green affordable housing project in the country.”
Click through to watch the interview, see the project, and more!
Easy Being Green
The R-House (left) by ARO/Della Valle Bernheimer and the TED by Onion Flats, under construction in Syracuse, are prime examples of affordable, practical green design. (David Lassman / The Post-Standard)
The Syracuse School of Architecture launched the Ground Up housing competition with the express purpose of challenging the notion that green building had to be expensive. Selecting three homes for under $150,000 designed by Cook+Fox, ARO/Della Valle Bernheimer, and Onion Flats, the school and local non-profit Home HeadQuarters sought to investigate the limits of sustainable design while reviving Syracuse’s rundown Near West Side. The project is nearing completion as detailed in a series of blog posts from the Post Standard (to which we were directed by our friends at ArchNewsNow). It’s a thorough, thoughtful account of three pathbreaking homes and well worth checking out both as a fine example of bricks-and-mortar blogging and deft design.
Walmart? Fugedaboutit!
The stores of Gateway Center 1. Might the second phase include a Walmart? (Courtesy Related)
In the last Midwest issue, we recounted Walmarts struggles to infiltrate urban centers, notably in Chicago. But the world’s largest retailer and the nation’s largest employer has also been eying New York for years, and the Daily News reports that it is making a new push in Brooklyn, which has already met resistance from locals and labor without even being officially announced. The weird thing, though, is how eerily similar there approach is in East New York as with the Pullman project on Chicago’s Far South Side. Both are meant to be the anchor tenant in a larger mixed-use development that involves affordable housing (the former is part of Gateway II, the latter Pullman Park) located in the fringes of their respective cities, places that have been historically economically depressed. This puts Walmart in a better position of arguing that the area is in need of jobs, any jobs, not to mention affordable housing, so how dare politicians and unions try to stop it. Whether it works in Brooklyn or the Far South Side, only time will tell, but if Kingsbridge is any indication, it probably won’t happen in the Five Boroughs any time soon. Pullman, however, might be an entirely different story, as Mayor Daley continues to agitate for the project’s approval.
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