via New York Times | In a Bronx Complex, Doing Good Mixes With Looking Good“Sometime late this winter people will start moving into Via Verde, the subsidized housing development now rising on a long, narrow slice of formerly contaminated city property in what used to be one of the worst stretches of the South Bronx.The co-ops and rentals for low- and moderate-income residents spiral around what will be a leafy, semi-enclosed court. Single-family town houses are taking shape alongside a 20-story apartment tower overlooking the sea of housing complexes that have transformed the neighborhood in recent years … The design of Via Verde stresses aesthetics and features that promote health, like multiple exposures for apartments, a health club and vegetable garden… Of course a building consists of more than its skin and the claims of its makers. Its aesthetics remain inseparable from its function. It has to work, for the people who use it and live with it, not just see it. The real test for Via Verde — watch this space — will be once its residents have settled in, to see how green and healthy and gracious they actually find it. Meanwhile one thing’s already certain. With the economy struggling and poverty rising, the project points architecture, and the architectural conversation, in the right direction.” macromovements: (via Via Verde in South Bronx Rewrites Low-Income-Housing Rules - NYTimes.com)

via New York Times | In a Bronx Complex, Doing Good Mixes With Looking Good
“Sometime late this winter people will start moving into Via Verde, the subsidized housing development now rising on a long, narrow slice of formerly contaminated city property in what used to be one of the worst stretches of the South Bronx.
The co-ops and rentals for low- and moderate-income residents spiral around what will be a leafy, semi-enclosed court. Single-family town houses are taking shape alongside a 20-story apartment tower overlooking the sea of housing complexes that have transformed the neighborhood in recent years … The design of Via Verde stresses aesthetics and features that promote health, like multiple exposures for apartments, a health club and vegetable garden…

Of course a building consists of more than its skin and the claims of its makers. Its aesthetics remain inseparable from its function. It has to work, for the people who use it and live with it, not just see it. The real test for Via Verde — watch this space — will be once its residents have settled in, to see how green and healthy and gracious they actually find it.

Meanwhile one thing’s already certain. With the economy struggling and poverty rising, the project points architecture, and the architectural conversation, in the right direction.”

macromovements:

(via Via Verde in South Bronx Rewrites Low-Income-Housing Rules - NYTimes.com)