Following our site visit to Congo Street Initiative in Dallas, the Bruner Foundation team headed to New York City to our next 2013 Rudy Bruner Award finalist site, Via Verde. Submitted by Jonathan Rose Companies and Phipps Houses, Via Verde (the “Green Way”) is a 222-unit affordable housing development in the Melrose section of the South Bronx. The project, completed in 2012, was designed as a model for healthy and sustainable urban living.

View of Via Verde from fourth floor fruit tree orchard.  Photograph: ©David Sundberg/Esto

We spent two cold, windy days on site, touring the project with the design and development team, taking photographs, as well as meeting with people involved in its development, design, and operation in the Bronx and Manhattan. Like the Congo Street Initiative, Via Verde illustrates another approach to designing affordable, sustainable housing, albeit at a larger scale and catalyzed by a different set of circumstances.

Via Verde grew out of two international design competitions that were part of the New Housing New York (NHNY) Legacy Project, which sought to create a new standard for affordable housing and development. The first, the 2004 NHNY Design Ideas Competition, was sponsored by AIA New York (AIANY) in partnership with New York City Council and the City University of New York and solicited design concepts for three sites. Powerhouse: New Housing New York, an exhibit and public programming supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, showcased selected entries at AIANY’s Center for Architecture. Read more…

This fall season’s shows and programs promise to bring important educational opportunities for anyone interested in the built environment. The most intense learning opportunities in New York City are coming to the Center for Architecture, home to the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIANYC). Among the upcoming programs is the exhibition Beyond Zuccotti Park, September 10–22, looks at public space as a follow-up to the Occupy Wall Street protests which put New York City in the national headlines.

I have been involved with the Center’s programs (as a member of the Exhibitions Committee and program moderator) since it opened in 2003. On each visit to the building on LaGuardia Place, I discover a hive of activities on street level, in the basement, and sub-basement alike. As I watched the number of scaffoldings multiply this summer on New York City streets, I wondered how and to what extent the local architecture community is involved in this seemingly positive happening , and as I began to anticipate the fall’s activities, I approached Rick Bell, the Center’s executive director, to discuss what an active group of architects can do for themselves, their profession, their city, and the world.

Susan S. Szenasy: In this summer of powerful downpours, I have often been saved from getting drenched by the many scaffolds that line New York City sidewalks these days. Hundreds of buildings are getting fixed up. Are architects involved in these projects? If they are, how? If not, why not?

Rick Bell: The scaffoldings that cover our sidewalks usually indicate that building façade repair work is going on above. The 6,000 “sidewalk sheds” in New York City stretch over a million linear feet, more than the distance from Brooklyn to Baltimore. They protect pedestrians from the risk of falling debris caused by masonry re-pointing and other building maintenance.

Periodic inspections of street-facing walls have been obligatory since a Barnard student, Grace Gold, was killed in 1979 by falling masonry on Broadway and 115th Street. Local Law 11 of 1998 toughened the regulations, and since 2008 some 12,500 buildings are required to have timely repair. Many architects conduct the inspections, as well as specify the remedial work necessary to assure public safety and allow for the removal of the protective scaffolding.

Standard-issue sidewalk sheds have long been criticized as unsightly. In fact, AIA New York partnered with the NYC Department of Buildings on the urbanSHED International Design Competition, launched in August 2009, to come up with a better and more environmentally appropriate 21st century version. Think of the scaffolding as a kind of umbrella – needed at some times, but put away when the rain stops. The winning scheme of the competition, in fact, was called Urban Umbrella (PDF) and architect Andrés Cortés, AIA is working to see his design realized citywide.

It is also worth noting that sidewalk sheds surround not only the locations where older buildings are being restored or repaired. Many new buildings continue to be erected in all five boroughs and architects in New York City are guardedly optimistic that an improving economy translates into more design opportunities and construction starts.

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