The book Housing Redux focuses on ways to reinvent public housing in New York City through a series of design projects produced in an advanced studio that integrates form with social programs for the residents. Nnenna Lynch, housing developer and Edward P. Bass Distinguished Visiting Professor with architects Jamie von Klemperer and Hana Kassem, of Kohn Pederson Fox, and Andrei Harwell, senior critic in architecture, led the studio, focusing on the redesign of the New York City Housing Authority’s Washington Houses, in East Harlem. Investigating the relationship between housing, equity, health, and community, the students developed comprehensive frameworks for the apartment buildings, comprised of three connected superblocks equivalent to seven city blocks. The concepts focused on restitching the project into the city street grid by adding new built fabric that would allow the Modernist towers-in-the park to connect with public streets. Some found ways to keep the superblock with interventions to support the community at different scales and family structures. Urban farms and community facilities as well as recreation spaces were included as a way to reorient public housing with a range of interventions for care, health, and equity.
