Weekly Roundup 037 – 7th to 13th November

FEATURE REPORT/ ARTICLE OF THE WEEK

‘7 smart ways to design housing thats actually affordable’
Authored by Margret Rhodes

A new exhibit at The Center for Architecture in New York City focuses on housing that more people can afford. This article covering the exhibition and the core message of the exhibit is addressing ways of reducing costs without compromising design quality. Affordable housing typically refers to policy initiatives that ensure that residents at a certain income can qualify for housing units, but affordability in itself is a broader concept. The exhibition examines how architects, engineers, planners, policy makers, tenants, and homeowners are crafting innovative ways to reduce the cost of housing by rethinking how to build, maintain, and occupy structures.

The 7 strategies include re-imagining public housing, leveraging land, building simply, deploying technology, rethinking home life, constructing in a modular manner, and building incrementally. It exposes us to some new, some old-wine-in-a-new-bottle and a generous dash of innovative thinking which helps us rethink the meaning of true affordability.

Read the whole piece here

Published by WIRED.



ONLINE PUBLICATION OF THE WEEK

‘A History of Housing in New York City’
Published by Columbia University Press

Often appearing on highly coveted lists of publications that are must-reads for New York City’s urban design history, ‘A History of Housing in New York City’ is a brilliant and unbiased record of the most significant, and under the radar events which shaped New York’s illustrious development. While Corbusier described Manhattan as a magnificent catastrophe, Plunz offers fresh material and insight into how and why modernist “tower in the park” designs of architects such as Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius were adapted into the design of much of New York’s public housing. Amongst his many examinations which cover the cause and effect of multiple tensions among builders, government planners, housing reformers, and architects which have affected the course of housing development; the return to low-rise publicly subsidized housing, such as new “suburban cottages” set amidst the abandoned buildings and rubble strewn lots of the South Bronx and many more uniquely New York happenings that have its shaped the real estate development.

Read the publication here.

VIDEO/ PODCAST OF THE WEEK

‘Urban design for successful cities’
Created by TEDx

As Chief Urban Designer for the City of New York, Alexandros Washburn understands one key thing about designing successful cities: it doesn’t work until it works for the pedestrian. He cites the impact of 9/11 and the subsequent change in tide of design decisions. With the Times Square renovation, he puts forth the ripple effect of simple moves and the cascading effect the move had on the retail and real estate of the area. Catch the entire talk over here.

Urban Design for successful cities from TEDx Program