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February 28, 2006

Tattered York, Tattered Visions. This evening the New York, New Visions group is holding a -- well, I’m not sure what they are calling it this go around. It’s not a listening session (cause that would take way too long), and apparently the last effort to make it seem like privileged information was being disseminated (it was ‘off-the-record’) has been abandoned, since they have figured out how to effectively eliminate the input of anyone not named Burlingame from the process. So tonight, at the Center for Architecture, there will be a ‘discussion of the planning and projects currently underway at the World Trade Center site’ (NB: this info via Polis). Oddly, they have scheduled two hours -- that's plenty of time to look at barren worksite. Trying to dig up information from the last session (eighteen months ago), I find numerous markers for all manner of failing: Pataki saying he wanted to see steel in the air by 2006, Rampe demanding we build 10MM square feet of spec office space or risk dishonoring the dead. Rememeber not even knowing who Debra Burlingame was?

The New York New Visions site itself doesn’t seem to have been updated in two years. Not that I’m in a big hurry -- it only seems that the push that excused such poor planning and decision making was justified because haste was framed as the proper response to events. Since that haste is clearly not in evidence, perhaps we can jettison the work to date? Fiscal prudence, logic, good design; none of these were in any evidence over the past four-plus years, so pressing forward doesn’t seem to be a reasonable reward for ineptitude.

Anyway, I plan to trudge on over there, suffer more meaningless platitudes about how things really aren’t a keystone cops affair behind the curtain. There is a Q&A, and I have my question ready (I want to ask the new LMDC head if they have stated position on commercial space development -- that is, with Rampe gone and Silverstein broke, do they see the 10MM as a mandate, or have they developed a more nuanced position on demand and development, and is there any interim strategy to deal with the site?). If you can’t make it, and have a better one, send it along. Most likely I’ll just stand there and fume, but either way, a surly recap is forthcoming.

Found always via this Permanent Link.

February 21, 2006

Housing for the Rest of Us: Spring Creek, Part II NOTE: Last week (okay, I’m running a little slow here), I wrote up the context and background of Spring Creek Houses, a public-private development in East New York. Today is a discussion about the design proper.

The actual housing units at Spring Creek were designed by Alexander Gorlin, who has maintained a healthy mix of high end residential and commercial work with affordable housing and several school projects (he’s best known, likely, as the designer of Libeskind’s loft on TriBeCa).

His approach seems to have been a vigorous and idealistic engagement of the process at all levels (even to the point where his firm attempted to coordinate site work so that multiple utilities wouldn’t be digging up streets in succession to run lines, only to find to his dismay that no one in the bureaucratic monster that is New York could alleviate this, or even saw it as a problem). The results cannot be measured in the typical shelter porn press way. That is not to say they aren’t impressive on their merits, but only that there is very little relationship between what you see in the pages of Dwell and what was possible in this context.

And the context, in this case, is all about density. The urban planning discussed last week, the type distribution, the use possibilities, all were driven by a cost-conscious consideration of the number of units possible. Only two of the 700 planned are mixed use. Aside from the practical problem of a somewhat remote site supporting retail, there was no possibility of recommending more retail, since the density necessary to make the numbers work inhibited such a goal. The proximity of the shopping center should help somewhat in practical terms, but it is unfortunate that more couldn’t be supported from a purely local culture perspective.

The theories and strategies that undergird each generation of housing planning all dance around the fact that as a culture we show little interest in taking a communal response to housing -- unless of course, it comes to the color of our grass. So the physical type is altered every couple years in response to the presumption of failures of previous ideals. No doubt there are social ills present in public housing, but the physical rarely drives the social. Most times is it siting (developing the least attractive lots of subsidized housing), a lack of programming for the residents or a long-term commitment to institutional support that leads to decay.

That’s not to say that design intervention doesn’t have an impact, but rather that they changes are incremental at best -- and are worth pursuing -- but that perhaps the vagaries of fashion have a disproportionate impact. The current strategy is the creation of infill housing that mirrors the immediate context, and, when possible, provides direct access to the street from each unit. A minor point, but one found to have important psychological effects (a greater sense of safety and ownership), even though it is hardly the norm in many parts of the city.

Another major site decision was to push the buildings to the front of the lot. Across Brooklyn and Queens, there is a precedent for front or rear yards. Here the decision was driven by the belief that a more unified streetwall would provide long term value -- both aesthetically and economically. It was also part of the long-term evolution of the design.

Gorlin toured housing sites in Europe with Nehemiah representatives, researching social housing solutions that weren't in regular evidence here. The results of which are evident in earlier schemes, with a much stronger horizontal character.

Cost considerations (and, if I recall, manufacturing challenges) obviated this approach. Rather than water down the concept, the units were refashioned as more discrete units. Though there was consideration of the patterning the conjoined units will create, the approach is far more of a traditional townhouse model you find both here and in other older urban areas.

I say manufacturing, because one of the interesting innovations of the project is that all of the units will be pre-manufactured. This strategy has been part of the Nehemiah Houses in previous stages, with Capsys, a local company that manufactures in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, providing 700 units for the last major initiative.

The units will be built floor-by-floor at the factory, trucked to the site, and then craned into place. What is exceptional about these units is their 20-foot wide footprint. One of the more onerous restrictions of manufactured housing is the nationwide limit on oversized vehicles (currently 15 feet) traveling interstate highways. Because transit from the Navy Yard to East New York can be surface streets only, this limitation was removed. Of course, when I asked the Capsys folks about the challenges of shipping a 20-foot wide house section (weighing 70,000 lbs) through Brooklyn, I got a hopeful grin and admission that they haven’t yet tried it (though they have about 2,000 attempts coming to get it right).

While the concept is somewhat original, the process is very familiar. The floors are stick-built (meaning, traditional framing) by teams. The impact of assembly production is somewhat evident. Teams are organized by trade, each working a station, with the floor units move laterally to the next station. This would pretty much happen on site, except the structure would be stationary, with the teams moving down a line.

The advantages of this process are the ability to work year-round with minimal weather impact and some economies of scale in materials, resulting in traditional building standards (meaning a nominal increase in quality over traditional manufactured housing) at a discount to typical construction costs. The Spring Creek houses are targeted in the neighborhood of $145/sq ft (depending in the borough, this is upward of a 20% savings -- and Capsys is a union shop).

Like the density concerns, prices are very closely watched, since one can track the path from design ideal to monthly mortgage cost pretty easily. The result of this concern is that you won’t find any sleek detailing on the interior: sheetrock, hollow core doors and a monochrome paint finish are the standard. The plans are pretty straightforward, and as much consideration as possible has been given to the window openings and locations, and making the space planning as efficient as possible. But the fact of the matter is that $145/ft doesn’t get you a whole lot. Decisions as fine as wanting to step the units in and out along the streetwall had to be eliminated due to cost. The effect of some of the concepts could be measured in increments as small as dollars, or dollar, per square foot. But when you are trying to make housing available to families of four earning $40,000 yearly, those dollars magnify quickly.

As is typical when value engineering rationalizes the construction methods and materials so rigidly, you maximize your discretionary leverage where it is most profound. Utilizing a consistent window size, by varying size of opening, and exterior color, some dozen plus variants will be achieved, a mix of two, three and four-story units (which have a maximum of three dwellings).

The result is a solid, attractive solution. Another wrinkle in the process has been the formation of a semi-homeowner’s association, designed to regulate some of the finishes. It’s one of those architect diva moves that also ties to extant data: a number of inner city developments have succeeded by aping some of the homeowner’s association gambits you see elsewhere (like lawn color regulation). The logic is that applying the strictures of what is normally perceived as an affluent housing condition will encourage a similar level of community involvement (a development in urban Dayton manage to reduce crime by making a suburban cul-de-sac’s in the 90’s) .

Where does that leave us? Look, I’m past the point where I can fairly wear the filter of critical analysis of what works. I look at multi-million dollar apartments (online, albeit) all day long. I grew up in a house that rents for a sliver of what you pay, and I have lost the critical lens. Some academic suck telling they still have it is lying. The previous, Amsterdam-influenced scheme resonated more for me (and no doubt it did for everyone else). But if everyone in this city who made $40K had a chance to own a place like this, we would be far better off. The problem is not the detailing of an entrance. The problem is the scarcity of projects like this. Anyone who has done a project where economy is the key driver has myriad regrets. That’s not to say I have evidence of many; rather, the complexity of managing all the components and circumstances means that pinpointing when a particular decision was made ex post facto is pointless. I, like the Nehemiah people, like Gorlin, we all wish they weren’t staring down the barrel at $145. But for those numbers, it’s still quite an accomplishment.

Found always via this Permanent Link.

February 14, 2006

Housing for the Rest of Us: Spring Creek. This is the first in a series of discussions of housing up and down (well, down and up) the income scale. Three projects will be discussed in detail, with posts separated by particular issues. The first project is Spring Creek Houses in East New York, the result of a public-private partnership that aims to provide home ownership to low- and moderate-income residents. Today’s discussion is about housing policy and funding, and the site. Later in the week will be a post about the proposed housing units.

The latest real estate bubble did not make New Yorkers more attuned to the significance of home ownership and value; it simply made the tone a bit more shrill. As a friend noted upon arriving, only two things are discussed in this town: where you live, and how you get there.

The recent trends indicate record home ownership in the city. Even though the prices in some areas make purchasing a seemingly irrational economic decision, the effects of this growth are being felt in the rental market, with rates being pushed (though the key indicator -- ratio of income spent on housing -- has grown more due to flat or falling real wages).

The latest numbers show, nonetheless, it is far better to own. And given our relatively low median wages (compared to the cost of living across the city), the percentage point changes that many of us look at as a step up or down in vacation plans are more keenly felt when trying to support a family on $36,000.

Recent data shows that the poorest neighborhoods pay the largest proportion of their monthly income for rent, even when public or Section 8 housing is available. A red-zone indicator is 50% or greater of income spent on housing. Across the board, a smaller number of homeowners spend over 50% on housing in all classes (except those is public housing and rent controlled tenants in Manhattan).

There are two reasonable conclusions: build more public housing, or get more poor residents into homeownership opportunities. Given the history of public housing, and urban ‘re-development’ (many of our most blighted neighborhoods used to be stable communities with a high proportion of resident ownership until Robert Moses decided that white people from Connecticut shouldn’t have to take the train to the city), home ownership seems far preferable. Either one is a clear commitment to subsidy; given that unit construction is still part of any program, helping increase ownership doesn’t seem like a bad idea. But I’m not in possession of any particular knowledge to make this case. It just seems pretty rational.

The Bloomberg administration agrees, though less than the Ferrer administration planned to -- Bloomberg is committed to creating 60,000 new units, whereas Ferrer was pushing for double that. Of course, in both instances, some numbers massaging upped those numbers, and regardless of real or inflated projects, Bloomberg is lagging a bit.

Are either that impressive? Well, the city has a current inventory of just over 3.2 million units, making 60,000 a 5% increase over 5 years. Overall additions to housing over the past ten years are considerably less, at 16,000 (meaning in increase, on average of one-half a percent between 1994 and 2004).

In terms of aiding the most needy, the increase is starker. Of the current inventory, just under 10% is public or Section 8 housing, meaning if Bloomberg hits his target, he will realize a 20% increase. What I couldn’t find were historic numbers, but my best recollections indicate that even this boom won’t bring the inventory back in line with numbers as recent as the early 80’s.

So how does it get made? In teensy increments, most of the time. Given the resources available (a half-dozen governmental agencies, several major research institutions, scores of NGO’s, community groups and churches, all whom have an interest in the issue), it’s amazing the more isn’t done. I’m not here to critique the will or assess the process (since I’m largely ignorant), but to talk about how a thousand homes get built.

Back in the 1980’s, a housing program grew out of the combined efforts of the Industrial Area Foundation (founded by legendary social antagonist Saul Alinsky) and local churches with the goal of building housing for ownership in Brooklyn and the Bronx. Known collectively as the Nehemiah Houses, over 3,000 houses have been built to date (part of a larger program sponsored by the city that added 13,000 units).

The current effort is bringing another 690 homes over the next several years to a former landfill in East New York. It’s a particularly brutal location. I don’t know East New York at all, so perhaps it doesn’t stand out as distinct, but relative to just about anywhere you or I have been is certainly is. Given the site prep has only begun, it’s hard to say what the final form will be. No doubt the immediate context will be just fine, but the views beyond are the issue -- and they are fixed, and unfortunate. The view with the most potential -- looking south to Jamaica Bay -- is obscured by three immutable landmarks: the Belt Parkway, a Ratner Shopping Enterprise, and the remainder of the landfill, which rises enough in the sky to eliminate any sense that one is adjacent to water.

Working from the existing (mapped) grid -- a revision would have been even more time consuming, an acute issue for a project that is over ten years in the making -- a smaller scaled grid has been inserted, with a small amount of open space reserved. The best that could come of the relationship with the shopping complex would be the creation of an entrance fronting the development, but this is unlikely.

All told, it’s a solid, direct, planning exercise, marked both by a good set of principles and tempered by the strictest possible economic controls. There is little room for amenity because the public portion of this project is courtesy HPD (Housing Preservation and Development), which agreed to fund site work in exchange for the commitment to build the 700 units. The total cost will be upwards of $25 million (the expected investment is in the neighborhood of $250,000 per unit). The rather sizable figure is a result of the current condition. As a landfill, it requires topsoil remediation (digging, removal and re-grading), methane monitoring, streets and all the attendant infrastructure.

It’s this sort of investment that gets to the crux of the necessary commitment. That’s a big number for just about any governmental body. But it is also necessary to fairly measure opportunity cost for this versus other investments. As a comparator, Goldman Sachs received something on the order of 12 times this investment to retain an undisclosed number of jobs downtown (it’s questionable how many people they could have successfully relocated to Jersey City). And that cost is in line with construction costs for public housing units elsewhere (assuming nominal site prep). Considering the sad state of the lot now, the cost of bring high value real estate (owned homes bring far more stability to a blighted area, and almost always lead to overall economic expansion) makes this look like a pretty savvy investment. It has limited recurring costs and opens the possibility of spurring additional interest in an underdeveloped area (compare that to Goldman Sachs, which decided to build in horribly disadvantaged Battery Park City).

And if you were wondering about interest, well, the first stage lottery (about 120 units) resulted in twelve thousand applicants. That’s right: if the city could arrange to build infill housing in all the open lots of East New York, they would have thousands of qualified candidates ready and waiting. What’s stopping the city? Well, the obvious answer is money -- but perhaps also willpower. After all, public spending is only a matter of priority. And as you try to measure that priority, bear in mind this is the largest subsidizing housing project current underway in the five boroughs.

NEXT UP: okay, everybody wants them, and they are getting built, at long last. But what do they look like?

Found always via this Permanent Link.

February 10, 2006

Your Hidden City. Somehow, Chad Smith over at Tropolism believes that I would be less acerbic when judging the unwashed masses; that, or I'm supposed to be the British guy from American Idol for this gig. Either way, I'm here to support the effort to turn the mike at y'all. Blogging means everyone gets an opinion, no matter how long winded it is. But not everyone has so much ire or free time. So we've made it easy: send an image and some words about something you, um, love, about this city. Then we pick the best and post it or something. I haven't gotten that far in the directions yet, but, helpfully, Chad has made things more concise and user friendly for y'all:

After a week of very subtle buildup, Tropolism is pleased to announce the first open-sourced architectural contest, Your Hidden City.

The contest is simple: post your photos (with a caption) to our public Flickr pool (or email them to us for posting), and our jury will select their favorites in five categories. The winners will be posted to Tropolism.

The theme of the contest is uncovering the Hidden City, your Hidden City, the one you see every day. It may be in plain sight of everyone else, but it is your eye that finds the extraordinariness in a particular street corner, a unique stair, a crazy intersection, a visually arresting approach, or a particular tree in the city. The photographs can be of a beautiful (and perhaps unpublished) park, or as simple as the sun hitting a particular building at a particular time of day. Please include a caption, or a Flickr annotation, about what makes it extraordinary to you. The entries should have one thing in common: they demonstrate, to you, the pleasure of living in the city.

The jury is a set of bloggers who write about architecture, urbanism, and landscape design. They are:

Lisa Chamberlain of Polis and who also covers real estate for the New York Times
David Cuthbert of architechnophilia
Geoff Manaugh of BLDGBLOG
Shawn Micallef of Toronto Psychogeography Society Blog
Jimmy Stamp of Life Without Buildings
and, yours truly.

The 5 Categories are:
Best Hidden Place
Best Density
Best Natural/Urban Overlap
Best Unofficial Landmark
Best Building

Found always via this Permanent Link.

Not enough trees grow in Brooklyn. So I’m a little late to the Brooklyn waterfront redevelopment – are you surprised at all? – controversy. I was vaguely aware that some feathers were ruffled when private housing was abruptly introduced, but the usual practice of too abbreviated representations (have developers and architects figured out yet that this Interweb thingee can freely distribute all sorts of images and plans?) and the seeming inevitable opposition by aggrieved residents did not hold my interest.

Being near the Architectural League last week with an hour to kill, I stopped in to see the presentation of the site model, renderings and planning diagrams (and, sorry, it just closed). Wanting to do a little background research leads me to conclude that the while there were some strong elements, both as presentation and design solution, I’d say that it did not ‘teach the controversy’ very effectively.

I’m not adequately steeped in the past five years of planning – my knowledge is culled from the impressive archives of The Brooklyn Paper (who are so disapproving of the project that then only refer to the ‘park’ in air quotes), but if they are to be trusted, the short version is:

The park, like the now stalled Husdon Yards, is being developed by a public-private corporation (the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation – BBDPC). As such, it only needs state approval (meaning no ULURP). Therefore, many of the mechanisms that provide the opportunity for community feedback (or as some might choose to characterize it, interference), such as Community Board and City Planning Commission reviews, are not required.

Strategic direction was set after a series of community workshops and the like back in 2000. In late 2004, the BBDPC started holding quiet, semi-private meetings that unveiled a revamped concept which included for the first time private residential structures and a hotel. Since then, things have been rather ugly, including a session where van Valkenberg screamed at members of the public, renderings that misrepresented the size of the proposed new buildings, and all manner of high-handedness on the part of the BBDPC. The rationale for the residential towers was that the park need be self-supporting financially, and this is the only viable means. That, and the thin argument that the buildings would aid in sound attenuation

The presentation at Urban Center focused on the approved plan. Barring legal challenges, it would seem that before the end of the decade, the new vision for the Brooklyn waterfront will be realized. That vision is quite firmly rooted in the late twentieth century notion of urban park space: highly regimented program space for structuring the lives of over-managed children and fitness-crazed adults. And this is after a ‘Chelsea Piers-style’ activity center was scrapped. Oh, and a marina, because everyone in Clinton Hill has been itching for slips for years. The best thing about this sap to the bonus-bulging pockets of the Maserati and Cristal set is that it is not slated to produce any revenue for the park. That’s right, a subsidized marina (the stated explanation is that they aren’t certain someone will step forward to develop it; what isn’t clear is if this is the only way it will go forward).

The presentation does an excellent job of laying out the contextual conditions and limitations, and is the most comprehensive element. One senses that it was perhaps the last time that rational thought was the keystone for the thinking. Addressing the multiple challenges the site presented (noise, inadequate structural stability of some of the piers), it lays out a credible argument for the major schematic elements.

After that, the murky shoals of politics and money are not so well documented. One omission was a pedestrian connector to Montague Street, to which the head of the BBDPC and van Valkenberg gave differing rationales (he was quote as cutting off her budget constraint line with a more blunt observation that is was never pursued as a program priority). Why the buildings are sited as they are, or if other economic models were proposed (one discarded option was a big box store development) aren't represented. Granted, this is a final model, but since the early stage planning was so carefully documented, there seems to be no reason not to incorporate the thinking behind the evolution.

The location of the new buildings and their bulk are not drastic in the model, though if you want to emphasize scale, you do ground level perspectives, and if you want de-emphasize it, you do a model. There are no contextual renderings of the residential buildings, so how this is spun in obvious. The model also omits the most important contextual element, which is the Promenade and the first line of structures immediately adjacent, which would give the best indicator of whether or not scenic view obstruction is a real concern.

The largest building, at the foot of Atlantic Avenue, struck me as a non-issue. Much was made of the opportunity lost for an grand entrance, but unless it connects to a different Atlantic Avenue, I’m not sure why this is so appealing. The Montague connector makes far more sense, since pedestrian approaches from the Heights would make more logical sense here.

The complaints that this unexpected revision will turn the park into a front yard for the wealthy have a ring of truth. But is it also true that people who live immediately proximate to public amenities tend to treat them (or try to) like private fiefdoms. After all, it’s not like the Kramdens are living on the Promenade.

What should be closely guarded against is the structure of the private corporation running the park and how its uses are regulated. Whereas Battery Park City never strikes me as overly exclusionary, I also am its target demographic. The charge that Dead End Kids won’t be able to gather to spontaneously partake in stickball is as antiquated as the notion that kids are able to do this anywhere. Finding play space for a pickup game of anything is not frustration limited to the green spaces adjoining the quarters of the rich.

The renderings fall victim to the High Line Disease, wherein we have really clever clip art of people pasted to green space, everyone looking appropriately ubran chic and happy, but aside from screaming “look how green” they don’t actually explain much. Few architectural details are evident. One of the compelling successes of the Hudson River Park is the simple and effective railing system that has occasional nodes that break up the pathway visually without inhibiting easy passage. No such representations are evident here. I can assume they are forthcoming, and I expect that sort of gripe only comes from certain quarters (such as this one), but it left me thinking not enough consideration had been given to details.

The most effective image, in terms of programming that really is inspiring, and provides a good sense of before and after, is that of ice skating under the Brooklyn Bridge. Currently, most of the area is closed off, a mixture of some DOT looking sheds and post 9/11 paranoia fencing. Which leads me to ask -- is there any chance of this being realized?

Having done my research post hoc, I do wish I had seen the presentation in late January. Given how much work is yet to be done, and knowing that depending on public condemns one to erring on the side of diplomatic, my sense is that this process has been lengthy, frustrating, and more disappointing than not. That doesn’t mean the result can’t be a warm and welcome addition to our waterfront. But the process to date seems to indicate that nothing is sacrosanct, and new compromises lurk behind every corner.

Found always via this Permanent Link.