The New Face of Affordable Housing
High design is entering the realm of affordable housing, with numerous projects around the country garnering acclaim.
"Public housing used to mean fortress-like blocks and soulless rows of cheaply built townhouses. But now there's a new model: privately developed homes and apartments that are well-designed, well-built and attractive enough to win over wary neighbors. A growing number of architects, from established stars to ambitious up-and-comers, are looking to such projects as an opportunity to do innovative work."
"Groundbreaking architecture still makes up a relatively small percentage of the thousands of units of low- and moderate-income housing that are built in the U.S. each year. Most of the design is "competent," says James Stockard, curator of the Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard School of Design and an expert in the field. Even that, however, is progress. Until the 1980s, almost all low-income housing in the country was built by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, designed with an eye to quantity, not quality."
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This affordable housing has a price...
Is affordable housing really the proper venue for architectural experimentation? There is of course a direct expense added to a project by this "architectural trickery". This expense must be offset by savings in other areas of project costs, e.g., sacrificing quality and durability in materials and/or reducing building area (thereby housing fewer people). I think it would be a better use of limited economic resources to design simple, aesthetically pleasing and durable housing that could house more people for less money. Such housing would be, by nature of its simplicity and greater life span, more sustainable as well.
"High Style" Affordable Housing
The author of this article doesn't seem to know that the "soulless" high-rise public housing built during the 1950s and 1960s was also considered "high style" at the time it was built. The designs were based on plans by Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and other "high style" early modernists. Apparently, using the latest "high style" architecture is not enough to create livable neighborhoods.
The author of this article also cares only about glitzy architecture and doesn't think at all about the quality of urbanism - which differs dramatically among the projects shown.
For example, Mandela Gateway and Denny Park Apartments have good traditional urbanism along with their modernist architecture - and I think they could help create successful neighborhoods, despite their slightly strange appearance.
On the other hand, Broadway and particularly Rainbow Apartments have the same failed modernist urbanism as the worst of the 1960s projects, and they could never help create successful neighborhoods, no matter how glitzy and avant garde the architectural establishment considers them to be.
Charles Siegel
Affordable Modern dwellings
While nice looking and a welcome change from affordable housing in the past, I wonder about the ongoing maintenance of these high style buildings. These units will have much higher costs than traditional and have to potential to wind out of control pretty quickly. One of the things I have noticed with "affordable housing" is a real lack of minimal maintence by owners of any kind.