TOPIC

Public Housing

Typecast: Towers in the Park

A Scheme on a Bluff: The View from Todt Hill Houses

In the third article in our Typecast series, Brad Fox travels to Staten Island's Todt Hill Houses and reminds us that amid debates on how design and policy can produce environments of opportunity, people are what ultimately make a place.

Joseph Shuldiner Knows Public Housing

As the only person to have managed housing authorities for all three of the nation’s largest cities, Joseph Shuldiner, current director of the Yonkers Municipal Housing Authority, has a unique and invaluable perspective on what it takes to make public housing work.

Typecast: Towers in the Park

Smith Houses: A Legacy of Activism

Sarika Bansal investigates how local traditions of advocacy, a history of community tensions, and the chronic underfunding of public housing inform residents' opposition to a controversial new development proposal at Smith Houses.

Studio Reports

Dwelling and Resilience

In a recent design studio set in the context of the public housing system, Andrew Bernheimer and David Leven challenged Parsons students to confront the environmental, social, municipal, and architectural demands of creating housing in New York City.

Typecast: Towers in the Park

Typecast

Typecast is a long-term Architectural League study into architectural typologies that begins with a closer look at five "towers-in-the-park," one in each borough of New York City.

Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts

Fort Greene, Brooklyn

In the second in a series of profiles of Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts, Mercedes Kraus looks at how a cultural community has flourished by leveraging its legacy of artistic production in the face of intensifying real estate pressure and outside influence and interest.

A Few Days in the Bronx: From Co-op City to Twin Parks

Susanne Schindler and Juliette Spertus examine two very different large-scale, high-density housing developments in the Bronx and consider how their histories can inform future innovation in affordable housing.

Low-Rise, High-Density Housing: A Contemporary View of Marcus Garvey Park Village

40 years after its construction, Karen Kubey revisits Marcus Garvey Park Village in Brownsville, Brooklyn, a revealing example of the design philosophies and policy priorities behind low-rise, high-density housing.

Efficiency and Effectiveness: Inside the Regional Assembly

Samir Shah recaps “Innovation and the American Metropolis” and calls for a broad and values-based vision to guide design and planning's use of technology.

A Walk Up Avenue D

Sociologist Dalton Conley takes us on a walk through the public housing complexes where he grew up, reflecting on the economics of housing policy and the limits of design.