Another chance for housing: low-riseAnother chance for housing: low-risealternatives; Brownsville, Brooklyn, Foxalternatives; Brownsville, Brooklyn, FoxHills, Staten Island : [Catalogue of] anHills, Staten Island : [Catalogue of] anexhibition at the Museum of Modernexhibition at the Museum of ModernArt, June 12-August 19, 1973Art, June 12-August 19, 1973Designed by the Institute for Architecture andDesigned by the Institute for Architecture andUrban Studies for the New York State UrbanUrban Studies for the New York State UrbanDevelopment CorporationDevelopment Corporation

AuthorMuseum of Modern Art (New York,N.Y.)

Date1973

Publisher[publisher not identified]

Exhibition URLwww.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2538

The Museum of Modern Art's exhibitionhistory—from our founding in 1929 to thepresent—is available online. It includesexhibition catalogues, primary documents,installation views, and an index ofparticipating artists.

© 2017 The Museum of Modern ArtMoMA

The Museum of Modern Art Another Chance for Housing: Low-Rise AlternativesNew York

Institute for Architectureand Urban Studies

1

Brownsville, BrooklynFox Hills, Staten Island

New York State UrbanDevelopment Corporation

i i i i i i i

*

Museum of Modern Art

Another Chancefor Housing: Low-Rise Alternatives

Brownsville, BrooklynFox Hills, Staten Island

An exhibition at theMuseum of Modern ArtJune 12-August 19, 1973

Designed by The Institute for Architecture and Urban Studiesfor The New York State Urban Development Corporation

The Museum of Modern ArtNew York

LIBRARYMnseuti of Modern Art

fiRChchive

/037

Trustees of theMuseum of Modern Art

William S. Paley, ChairmanGardner Cowles, Vice ChairmanHenry Allen Moe, Vice ChairmanDavid Rockefeller, Vice ChairmanMrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd, PresidentJ. Frederick Byers III, Vice PresidentMrs. Bliss Parkinson, Vice PresidentJames Thrall Soby, Vice President

Robert O. AndersonMrs. Douglas AuchinclossWalter BareissRobert R. BarkerAlfred H. Barr, Jr.*Mrs. Armand P. BartosWilliam A. M. BurdenIvan ChermayeffDr. Mamie Phipps ClarkMrs. C. Douglas DillonWilliam H. DonaldsonMrs. Edsel B. Ford*Gianluigi GabettiGeorge Heard HamiltonWallace K. Harrison*Mrs. Walter Hochschild*James W. Husted*Philip JohnsonMrs. Frank Y. LarkinGustave L. LevyJohn L. LoebRanald H. Macdonald*Mrs. G. Macculloch Miller*J. Irwin MillerSamuel I. Newhouse, Jr.Richard E. OldenburgMrs. Charles S. Payson*Gifford PhillipsNelson A. RockefellerMrs. Wolfgang SchoenbornMrs. Bertram SmithMrs. Alfred R. SternMrs. Donald B. StrausWalter N. ThayerEdward M. M. Warburg*Clifton R. Wharton, Jr.Monroe WheelerJohn Hay Whitney* Honorary Trustee for Life

The Institute for Architectureand Urban Studies

FellowsStanford AndersonPeter D. Eisenman, DirectorWilliam EllisKenneth FramptonMario GandelsonasPeter Wolf, Chairman

Visiting FellowsDiana AgrestArthur BakerVincent MooreRalph Warburton

Research AssociatesDuarte Cabral de MelloSuzanne Frank

TrusteesArthur Drexler, ChairmanMrs. Douglas AuchinclossArmand BartosGeorge A. DudleyJohn D. EntenzaPeter D. EisenmanBurnham KellyFrank StantonRichard MeierPeter Wolf

StaffLouise JosephJudith Hill

-4-=>?/ /97S

Marcus Garvey Urban Renewal Area,Brownsville, New York City (Urban'Application )

Fox Hills, Staten Island, New York(Suburban Application)

©1973 The Museum of Modern Art11 West 53 StreetNew York, N.Y. 10019All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 73-78278ISBN 0-87070-431-1

Photo: George Cserna

Introduction

As its name might suggest, the Museum ofModern Art, through its Department ofArchitecture and Design, is concernedwith the art of architecture. It recognizes— indeed it insists — that architectureeven more than the other arts is bound upwith ethics, social justice, technology,politics, and finance, along with a loftydesire to improve the human condition.Pending such improvement, however, wemust continue to exist in the realm ofcontingencies, and the particular contingency with which we are here concernedis: how should the architect's art be usedto devise humane housing?

It must immediately be acknowledged thatany conceivable answer depends on priorassumptions about the meaning of words:art, housing, and humane. But art andhousing, like the rest of life, do go on.With or without adequate definitions,where action is required it behooves us tooffer some answers, or at least somehelpful suggestions.

Toward this end the Museum's Department of Architecture and Design assistedin founding the Institute for Architectureand Urban Studies. The Institute is anindependent agency; the Department ofArchitecture and Design may from time totime collaborate with it in the developmentof specific proposals, and in the effort tohave them implemented where such initiative would seem to promise a perceptibleimprovement in the built environment.

Among the most important of the problemsthat both the Institute and the Museumcan identify is that of housing. Publicpolicy, determined as much by architectsand planners as by other spokesmen ofthe community (although architects andplanners might perhaps wish to deny this)has not lived up to expectations. Performance varies, and it is of the greatestimportance that public agencies remainopen to changing ideas. New York Stateis fortunate in that its Urban DevelopmentCorporation, under the leadership ofEdward J. Logue, is an agency that doesremain open to new ideas and in fact seeksto test them. In its collaboration with

the Urban Development Corporation theInstitute has benefitted from their immensepractical experience, and the Museum is

pleased to present to the public what itbelieves is a constructive step toward asignificant change in housing policy.

The evolution of housing concepts is itselfa subject of considerable complexity. Inorder to clarify the nature of these concepts and their present status, a mostinformative and useful review of theirhistory has been provided by KennethFrampton, a Fellow of the Institute andco-designer of two of the studies shownin the exhibition and in this catalog. Abetter understanding of the intentionsbehind unsatisfactory ideas about hous

ing may yet help us to avoid further pitfalls,and in this regard it is important to

emphasize that the term "low rise alternatives" means just that: low rise is notherewith presented as a new panaceadestined to sweep away all housing morethan four stories high. It is simply analternative — presumably one of many —and its full utilization remains to be explored. Neither is it new; it has been tried,abandoned, and tried again, now it mayfinally be given the sustained developmentit deserves.

The prototype and its two applications atsites in Brooklyn and Staten Island, allshown here, begin with the assumptionthat low rise housing lends itself particularly well to reinforcing the nature and useof the street. It is the confusion betweenpublic and private that has led to thebreakdown of both in so much recentbuilding, and a reassertion of the separateand equally necessary roles of public andprivate space applies to the design of highrise as well as low rise housing.

On behalf of the Museum I wish to thankthe many people in the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies and the UrbanDevelopment Corporation who have participated in preparing these projects. It isthe Museum's hope that this presentationof their work will promote informed publicdiscussion.

Arthur Drexler

Director, Department ofArchitecture and DesignMuseum of Modern Art

The family housing now being built in theolder cities of the United States seemsto be falling behind suburban housingfrom the point of view of affording somesense of identification between the familyand its dwelling. The cost of land and thedifficulties of relocation have led to anever greater emphasis on high risebuildings as the standard urban housingsolution for families of low and moderateincome.

These high rise "projects", as they areusually called, house a great manyfamilies on a relatively small amount ofland, and they do provide decent livingspace in quantities which would bedifficult to achieve at lower densities.However, their design and landscapingoften remain quite sterile. The scale ofsuch projects seems frequently to be waybeyond any human dimension, andfamilies, particularly young children, missthe feeling of a familiar, homelikeatmosphere. Furthermore, such housingprojects often seem not to fit in with thesurrounding neighborhood, but ratherstand apart from it.

We at the Urban Development Corporationthink the time has come to ask ourselveswhether the high rise, rather anonymoussolution is the best one for low andmoderate income families. Particularly, weask, is it best for young children. By nowwe have had experience in building bothhigh and low rise housing across thestate of New York. (However, almost noneof our low rise schemes are within theCity of New York.) In our high risedevelopments, as in all our projects, wehave chosen to emphasize high standardsof design, and have tried to make theground level spaces pleasant andinteresting.

During our live-in program last summer,many members of the senior staff and theirfamilies were able to experience directlywhat it was like to live in our housing.Valuable insights were obtained from thisexperience and we hope to repeat theprogram again in the summer of 1973. Wethink there are situations where the highrise approach is the right one and weintend to continue work on improved highrise solutions. However, out of our live-in

experience and our concern for theidentification of the family with its housing,and with an awareness of trends inWestern Europe, we were pleased to havethe opportunity of entering into partnershipwith the Institute for Architecture andUrban Studies (IAUS) in a joint attempt toprovide a low rise alternative. After manymeetings between the Institute andourselves over a period of several months,it became clear that there was a consensusto focus on what we have been callingLow Rise High Density housing. In this wehad to come to understand just how highwas low rise and just how low was highdensity.

We had to focus particularly on what iscalled the "bedroom count". In the UnitedStates, density is usually expressed interms of dwelling units per acre, whereasin Europe density is expressed in termsof people per acre. It was my own feeling,though I think it is widely shared, that whatwe were aiming at was offering thishousing solution to families with an aboveaverage number of children, and thereforethe final determination was what might .be called a "low rise-lots of children"solution.

From the very outset, the parties agreedthat this was not going to be anothertheoretical exercise with a planning reportand a proposal which would wind upgathering dust on a shelf somewhere.Working with the local community groups,the Model Cities organization in CentralBrooklyn, and with various city agencies,we developed a real site and a realprogram which is presently slated to getunder construction on the same day theexhibition opens at the Museum of ModernArt. We are particularly pleased to havebeen successful in obtaining an allocationof 236 funds which will permit the housingto be made available to families of lowand moderate income.

After very careful consideration ofvarious alternatives, we determined thatBrownsville would be a very good locationforthis pilot project. This is a neighborhoodthat has recently suffered seriousdeterioration. If it is to be rebuiltsuccessfully, the new low rise prototype,both as a unit and as an aggregate whole,

must afford not only a sense of individualidentity but also a sense of community.A second version of the low rise prototypeis under study for a site on Staten Island.Here it is being adapted to preserve andenhance the amenities of suburban lifebefore they are swept away by haphazardbuilding.

The Urban Development Corporationhas benefited greatly from the freshperspective of the Institute, and I thinkit fair to say they, in turn have benefitedfrom our experience with the very realworld in which we must operate. Both ofus have had to adjust our ideas of whatwe would like to what we could in factseek to achieve. I am personally confidentthat the end result will be widely popularwith the families who will live there.

We hope thatthe alternative here proposedwill be useful to those seeking to improvethe quality of life through housing not onlyin New York City but also in other citiesthroughout the state and the nation.

We are most grateful to the Institute andto the Museum of Modern Art for theirwillingness to co-sponsor this effort atimproving the quality of the housing weprovide. Through this exhibition and itsaccompanying catalog all New Yorkerscan share with us both the problem andits proposed solution.

Edward J. LoguePresident and Chief Executive OfficerNew York State Urban DevelopmentCorporation

1 New York. 1896. Ernest Flagg's modeltenement which was destined to dominatetenement planning in the city for thenext forty years. Note that sanitary fittings,etc. are included within the main livingspace.

2 Paris. 1903. Eugene Henard's Boulevarda Redans. One of the earliest 'anti-street'set back models, proposing garden courtyards opening directly off the sidewalk.

The Evolution of Housing Concepts: 1870-1970

Many of the received models of modernarchitecture and planning owe theirultimate origin to the building code andpublic health reform movements of thesecond half of the 19th century. As suchthey emerged as attempts first to accommodate and then to control the escalationin urban population that had risen to crisisproportions by the middle of the century.The first reaction to this spontaneousurbanization was to house migrating rurallabor in constricted tenements or back toback row houses, involving the wholesalesuperimposition of sub-human livingconditions. The second reaction was tolegislate against the more brutal aspectsof this instant housing and to postulatealternative models for the accommodationof the urban populace; models whichwould provide higher standards of space,access, light, ventilation, heat and sanitation. The third and final reaction, from thepoint of view of basic model making, wasto propose the gradual disurbanization ofrich and poor alike; to advocate theplanned dispersal of their urban congestion, at locations and densities which wereclearly intended to be rural. Where thefirst reaction engendered the promiscuities of the 19th century industrial slum,the second eventually brought forth theBye-Law street in England and the Oldand New Law tenements in the UnitedStates. Finally, in the last decade of thecentury, the third reaction, as formulatedby Ebenezer Howard, in his book,Tomorrow, A Peaceful Path to RealReform of, pointed clearly to the gardencity as a panacea for all our social andeconomic ills.

In each instance the proposed models ofbuilt form were not neutral in respect toeither the physical differentiation of publicspace or the physical pattern that wouldnecessarily result from their repetition.In either case, particularly after the turnof the century, the full human consequences of adopting 'open city' models,be they urban or suburban, were notforeseen. It was naively assumed atdifferent levels of sophistication, fromRaymond Unwin's Nothing Gained byOvercrowding of 1918 to Le Corbusier'sLa Ville Radieuse of 1930, that one simplycould not suffer from a surfeit of theessential joys, namely sun, light, air and

green space. In short, with some exceptions, the potential disadvantages ofrendering every building as freestandingas possible were largely ignored. By thesame token, few designers and theoristswere fully cognizant of the incapacity ofsuch models to differentiate open spaceadequately. A rambling green carpet setat grade, flowing out between isolatedbuildings, was thought to make amendsfor any loss of enclosure and, in the caseof high rise structures, to more thancompensate for an inherently unsatisfactory relation to the ground. In a similarway few could foresee (least of all,

perhaps, garden city proselytizers such asUnwin) the unmitigated waste that wouldnecessarily result from the wholesaleproliferation of a corrupted garden citymodel. Such men displayed little awareness of the potential of this model todegenerate into the ribbon and trackhouse development of the 20th century.

Tenement Development and theAnti-Street Models of the19th Century City: 1879-1938Prior to 1918, in rapidly expanding urbancenters such as New York, Paris andLondon, theoretical notions about cityblock planning underwent certain transformations. In New York persistent attempts were made to achieve an improvedstandard for low-income housing after themodel tenement designed by George Postand George Dresser in 1879, while in ParisEugene Henard attempted a reworking ofthe standard Haussmann boulevard in hisset back street model of 1903, which hecalled a boulevard a redans. (Fig: 2)Meanwhile, in London, Unwin and Parkeremployed a comparable set back terracefor picturesque effect in their HampsteadGarden Suburb of 1906. This same tradition was to be continued by Le Corbusierwho, a decade later, projected, in following Unwin, a system of set back blocks tobe compiled out of a free assembly ofstandard concrete units; his famousMaison Domino of 1915. All these set backsolutions were endemically anti-streetin as much as they constituted a consciousdisruption to the enclosing continuity ofthe traditional street.

In New York a number of architects wereto develop the Post and Dresser model

Berlin. 1900. Courtyard tenement planning after the reform law of 1897. Irregularcourtyards contained within a largerperipheral block that re-aligns the wholedevelopment with the street.

Berlin. 1925. Typical European peripheralblock planning. This particular versionbecame the legal maximum developmentin Berlin after 1925.

tenement further, particularly Ernest Flaggwhose Improved Housing Council tenements of 1896 demonstrated the potentialof an internal set back profile to provideadequate light and air to every room in thetenement. (Fig: 1) Flagg's model of 1896was destined to dominate New Yorktenement development for the next fortyyears, culminating in the Paul LawrenceDunbar Apartments of 1926 and ultimatelyin the Harlem River Homes of 1938. Both ofthese schemes pushed the space-makingpotential of the internal set back block toits natural limit. By this date, however, onemay detect an incipient tendency awayfrom maintaining the continuity of thestreet, particularly in the prototypicalschemes submitted to the New YorkHousing Authority in 1934. It would seemthat the implicit internationalism of theNew Deal had begun to turn the attentionof American architects away from thestreet, towards the set back block andthe row house models of European Rationalism — models which envisioned thetotal transformation of the city into acontinuous park.

The Evolution of the PerimeterBlock Model 1895-1923

In middle Europe, model tenement development took a totally different course;one which above all else was intent onmaintaining the street..From the Berlintenement reform law of 1897 (Fig: 3) toH.P. Berlage's plan for Amsterdam Southof 1917, designers and theorists in Germany and Holland move toward thedevelopment of a perimeter residentialblock that would preserve the plastic continuity of the street while opening up theresultant courtyard for use as an enclosedsemi-public space. Such a multiple-dwelling model had already been demonstrated on a small scale by Frank LloydWright in his Francisco Terrace apartments built in Chicago in 1895. It was tobe realized on a much larger scale in thebuilding out of Berlage's AmsterdamSouth and in J. J. P. Oud's Tusschendykenhousing built in Rotterdam after 1918.

By the mid 20's perimeter block model(Fig: 4) was to enjoy a brief period ofuniversal acceptance as the standardEuropean building block for low costurban housing. As such it made its pres

ence felt on the outskirts of cities as farremoved from each other as Berlin,Vienna and Helsinki. Such widespreadadoption seems to have come at a timewhen the model itself had already beensignificantly modified, most particularlyin Michiel Brinkman's Spangen housingbuilt in Rotterdam in 1921 (Fig: 5) Theimportance of this, still relatively unknown,work lies in the fact that it enriched theinner space of a typical Berlagian courtyard block through the provision of anelevated deck, giving continuous accessat a third floor level to a periphery ofduplex units. The width of this open deckwas hypothetically such that it could serveas a surrogate street affording adequatespace not only for access and service butalso for children's play and doorstep conversation. Brinkman (like the Smithsonsafter him in the 50's) conveniently overlooked the fact that such a street isinevitably one sided and only partiallyenclosed and that in any event its width ishardly likely to be adequate for all theuses to which it is theoretically dedicated.Nevertheless the importance of Spangenlay in the fact that it introduced a totallynew device for providing access to masshousing, namely the deck; its recent seminal influence extending from Alison andPeter Smithson's Golden Lane Housingprojected in 1952 to Davis Brodie's River-bend Housing Harlem, designed in 1964.Its latent specific impact, however, lay andindeed still lies, in its capacity to suggesta more differentiated and dense scale forlow rise housing which, while preservingthe continuity of the street, is capable ofindividuating the separate units and ofpermitting their more immediate connection to the ground.

The Influence of Le Corbusier: 1922-1956Both Henard's set back block and Berlage's peripheral courtyard model were tofind their brilliant if relatively unrealizablesynthesis in Le Corbusier's hypotheticalcity for 3 million inhabitants of 1922.(Fig: 6) In Le Corbusier's Ville Contempo-raine each courtyard block enclosed alarge communal green space, while hisset back structures advanced and recededamid a continuous parkscape. In bothinstances the residential units comprisedtwo story, L-shaped, duplex units eachenclosing its own garden terrace. These

5 Rotterdam. 1921. Spangen Housing.Michael Brinkman's tiered two storyhouses served by an elevated deck. Thedeck connects all the units peripherally tothe public facilities located in the center,while the perimeter re-aligns the wholedevelopment to the existing street grid.

6 Paris. 1922. Le Corbusier's projectedversion of a peripheral courtyard blockwith deck access.

7 Essen. 1870. Krupp worker's housing. Thehighly rationalized layout anticipates thelater Zeilenbau approach of the WeimarRepublic.

8 CI AM. 1930. Walter Gropius' didacticdemonstration of the advantages of highrise over low rise, in respect of optimisingthe amount of open space between blocks.

9 Zurich. 1932. Neubuhl. The Zeilenbaumodel handled as a low rise garden cityon a sloping site.

were fed by wide access decks elevatedsome five to eleven floors above grade.

In many respects this city, projected at aregional scale, constituted a threshold inthe development of these Europeanhousing models. From now on the generaltendency was towards the ultra-rationalistline of the Modern Movement, a linewhich was to extend from the Krupphousing built in Essen in the 1870's (Fig: 7)to the medium rise open row, Zeilenbau,house model of the Weimar Republic.(Fig: 9) Despite the fact that Le Corbusierwas always to remain somewhat outsidethis particular progression, he nonetheless broughtthe residential unit to itslogical formulation as a free-standing,self-contained, self-sufficient slab (theneighborhood unit as megastructure).Le Corbusier was quite as ambivalent tothe tradition of the enclosed street as anygarden city planner. After Henard andUnwin he could only accept the continuous facade if its length were broken withset backs. Not least among his granderaims seems to have been the "rustifica-tion" of Haussmann's Paris through theintroduction of new prototypes operatingat a vastly increased scale. Of theseRadiant City prototypes, it was the highrise residential tower rather than thefreestanding slab that was to exert thegreatest impact on the spatial pattern ofNew York. Developed in the late 30's as adensity booster for low income housingin Sweden and Holland, the tower becamethe received norm of the New York CityHousing Authority from 1934 until theearly 60's. In the interim both the slaband the tower were to play mutuallydisjunctive roles in the formation of socalled mixed development, i.e., the highand low rise mix that dominated Englishplanning in the immediate post war years.

The Evolution of the Open RowModel 1923-1933The radical change in German residentialblock planning in the middle twenties isbest exemplified in the work of Otto Haes-ler. Between his Siedlung ItalienischerGarten of 1923 and his Siedlung Georgs-garten in 1924, the overall model becomestotally transformed from a block arrangement facing directly onto the street, tothat which was already the Zeilenbauapproach, namely, open rows of identical

length, set endward to the street, and 7arranged a standard distance apart.Nothing now remained but to increase theheight of the typical Haesler three storywalkup block through the judicious use ofelevators. (Fig: 8) This much Gropiuswasto make clear in his essay for the CIAMpublication, Rationelle Bebauungsweisenpublished in 1930, where he wrote: "Ina ten or twelve story high rise apartmenteven the ground floor occupant can seethe sky. Instead of lawn strips only 20meters wide, the windows face landscapedareas with trees which are 100 meterswide and help to purify the air as well asproviding playgrounds for children."This rationalist slab, justified largely onthe basis of the space liberating potentialof American technique (Gropius illustrateshis text with the Sunlight Towers proposedby Kocher and Ziegler) was destined withthe residential tower to become the primehigh density housing model of the post1945 era. Until then, at least in Europe, thethree to four story walk-up row housecontinued to predominate as the received

type and was to serve as such in the 8exemplary CIAM Siedlung Neubuhl realized outside Zurich in 1932. (Fig: 9) Onceagain the triumph of one model, namely cparallel rows of freestanding blocks orslabs, seems to have led almost at once toits counter thesis, that is to the projectionof carpet-courtyard housing as an overallsolution to the problem of housing atrelatively high density. First Adolf Loos inhis Heuberg houses of 1923 and then, inthe late twenties, Hugo Haring, Ludwig dHilberseimer and finally Mies van derRohe projected various versions of thecourtyard house, as a new unit of landsettlement, while in 1933 the Dutch architect Leppla designed a two story low risehouse that was capable of yielding theremarkable density of 350 persons peracre. Although hardly a courtyard house,it is of interest that a few years later FrankLloyd Wright was to propose his SuntopHome, built at Ardmore, Pennsylvania, asa new unit for dense suburban settlementin the States.

The Evolution of Low RisingHousing: 1948-1966The first stirrings in this direction were tocome immediately after the war, just atthat moment when the isolated tower or

The Museum of Modern Artllllll Hill lllll lllll lllll lllll lllll lilll lllli I

|jU"100.00-j JM.»*100.00*Jk^-lOOOO- ^U'100.00- p-l,M20 00—

I 'i\r3

limn

*4.-3311 4**43.71

t

3

4y-54.36

f

ir~1 1

L I 1 aH>22.68 b' =2S344

M b»=253« C " ^ bm -253.44

D b,-lC.OOy ^'*'4I7t-|

^ -b* 263.20

1 I-.-** -by-253.44-

10 Cap Martin. 1948. 'Roq et Rob'Housing. This project made at the sametime as the 'La Saint Baume' projectexemplifies Le Corbusier's revival of theMediterranean vaulted megaron as a basicliving module.

11 Bern. 1962. Siedlung Halen. The 'Roq etRob' model realized to the designs ofAtelier 5 as a low rise high density'enclave' outside Bern.

12 Portsdown Housing Competition. 1966.Entry by Brawne, Gold, Jones andSimpson. A subtle version of mixed development taking Halen and Bishopsfieldas its point of departure.

The Museum of Modern Arti iiAiii iiiii urn Mm Milt tint mil tiL mi,

13

13 Harlow. 1960. Michael Neylan's 'carpetcourtyard' housing for Bishopsfield,Harlow.

slab and the open row house had becomeuniversally accepted as standard components for the planning of residentialareas. Paradoxically enough Le Corbusierwas to make some of the running in thisreturn to a low rise paradigm, althoughhe was never to build housing in thisparticular form. His first essay in carpethousing (save for his university quarter of1923) was made in 1948 with his projectfor La Saint Baume. (Fig: 10) This project,whose urban and spatial structure deriveddirectly from Le Corbusier's revival of thebarrel-vaulted megaron of the Mediterranean, patently served as an essentialpoint of departure for the most seminallow rise scheme to be built after theSecond World War, namely, SiedlungHalen completed outside Berne in theearly 60's. (Fig: 11)

The decade leading up to Halen was towitness the growth of the so calledBrutalist sensibility, which was to rejectoutright not only the fragmented latter dayGarden City approach of the first EnglishNew Towns, but also the equally sterileZeilenbau model as interpreted in the firstEnglish high density schemes of consequence to be built after the war. Thisnew sensibility stimulated by vernacularsociology and by a polemical re-evaluationof the virtues of the enclosed Bye-Lawstreet of the 19th century, sought, in thewords of Peter and Alison Smithson, toestablish patterns of association andidentity which would lead "to the development of systems of linked building complexes which would correspond moreclosely to the network of social relationships, as they now exist." To this end theirGolden Lane housing, modeled partly afterLe Corbusier's pre-war redent planningand partly after Brinkman's Spangen, postulated an elevated deck as a surrogatefor the Bye-Law street; a concept thatconveniently ignored the essential phe-nomenological character of a doublesided traditional street. Nevertheless thissensibility asserted its relevance in anera of mixed development, with its easyacceptance of discontinuous and ill-differentiated open space and with theinequality of amenity that it afforded toblocks of markedly different height. Asone observer put it: "If the tenementforced integration, mixed development

forced segregation."

If they fell short of their goal of designingfor social relationships as they actuallyexisted, there is no doubt but that theSmithsons' 'close' and 'fold' house proposals, together with James Stirling'svillage infill project of the mid 50's did infact constitute a totally new strategy forhousing. By the late 50's, the English,under the influence of Le Corbusier, werealready oriented towards the adoption oflow rise housing as a general policy. Ittook some time, however, for this modelto become widely accepted. The ideaencountered nothing but resistance fromBritish public authorities throughout thenext decade, first in London where theMartin/Hodgkinson four story walk-upproposal was rejected outright on thegrounds that it was too 'advanced' for theaverage tenant and later in the highly influential Portsdown Housing Competitionof 1966, (Fig: 12) where the assessorscharacteristically disapproved of whatthey termed the 'carpet treatment' in thehousing. By then, however, resistance wasfaltering since the inherent livability ofthe idea had already been adequatelydemonstrated, first in Michael Neylan'slayout for courtyard housing at Bishops-field, Harlow (Fig: 13), designed in 1960and then with Siedlung Halen realizedoutside Bern to the designs of Atelier 5 in1962. Since then low rise high densitydevelopment has dominated British housing policy with on the whole felicitousresults, while in Switzerland so called'carpet housing' has become the standardtechnique for building on steep slopeswhich hitherto were regarded as undevelopable. Even in America this modelhas begun to gain some acceptance;particularly in the recent UDC low risehousing designed by Werner Seligmannfor Ithaca, New York.

It would be too much to claim that lowrise high density housing has begun toresolve the antagonistic split that openedup in the last quarter of the 19th centurybetween town and country, but at leastone may finally acknowledge its pertinence as a mediator in an era when thetime honored distinctions between urbanand rural are rapidly disappearing.

11

The UDC and the Evolution of a Housing Policy

In the years since the end of the SecondWorld War publicly assisted housing inAmerica has offered more by way offailure and lack of commitment to housingthan it has satisfactory accommodationfor low and middle income families. InEurope the experience has been different.The devastation of the Second World war,the lack of resources and the desperateneed for housing, led the Europeans toexperiment with a more differentiatedrange of housing types. Their experienceover several decades and their clearcommitment, not only enabled them tobuild to far superior standards but also toestablish new communities whose socialviability was immediately ratified.

During the first years of UDC's existence,after its incorporation in 1968, theemphasis was on getting things built.Design quality was then to be assuredthrough employing architects of highcalibre and through a process of conscientious design review. The result wasthe realization of a number of relativelysuccessful housing developments. UDC'sconstraints at that time were mainly theFederal Guidelines as laid down in theMinimum Property Standards. These were

always in conflict with our desire to buildto higher standards, both spatially andphysically. The first round of UDC projectsis already history and may be seen as aunique achievement in the rapid creationof housing stock that went some waytowards eliminating the stigma commonlyattached to public housing. Many participants in the design and developmentprocess, including community representatives, asked questions that couldnot be answered until occupants movedinto the first generation of dwellings."Does attractive housing mean saferhousing?" "Is your housing an asset tothe neighborhood and community inwhich it sits?" "Are your rooms largeenough?" These and other questionsrelating to livability demanded answers.As a result UDC became interested inimproving its criteria for housing; a process that recently culminated in theadoption of upgraded space standards.

for us means housing that is not onlyattractive in appearance,, but convenient,durable, flexible and above all equippedwith related facilities responsive topeople's needs. It means the creationof housing which is sensitively integratedinto the context in which it is situated.It means the construction of livable unitsthat respond to cost limits while bearingin mind the overall impact on the life styleof the occupant.

By now UDC has evolved a procedureand a set of criteria which are issued asgeneral instructions to both the architectand the corporation. These internalstandards help us to establish an appropriate program for each site and serveas guidelines not only in the initial designphase but also for the evaluation of theproject after it has been completed. Inthis way it is intended to update criteriain what will amount to a cyclical processof refinement and revision. Such a procedure should help the UDC to reflectthe desires and aspirations of its tenants.It should also demonstrate that housinga low to moderate income populace cancreate a community asset and not anadditional urban problem.

UDC has found that "learning from experience" is essential to the evolution ofa viable housing policy. Good design

Theodore LiebmanChief of Architecture at UDC

Low Rise High Density: Issues and Criteria

There are a number of ways by which onemay isolate the most critical issues affecting the quality of housing. One may eitherwork through direct experience or bystudying data drawn from current userneeds. Alternatively one may analyze themost recent criteria established for thedesign of housing. In practice the IAUSand the UDC were to use all of thesemethods as a way of arriving at a reassessment of the salient issues which a futurehousing alternative could be reasonablyexpected to meet. Amongst these issueswe gave special priority to the following.

1 The establishment of a physical environment which could be capable of inducing

at one and the same time both a senseof community and a sense of propriety,at a number of different scales. Wherethe former is evidently dependent on thecapacity of the units to aggregate in sucha manner as to evoke a sense of neighborhood compatible with pre-existing urbangrain, the latter depends on a number ofdetailed variables affecting the individualunit, such as the particular mode of accessor the possibilities for surveillance, orconversely the freedom from overlook.

2 A whole cluster of secondary but nonetheless crucial issues seem naturally tofollow from these master concerns forcommunity and propriety, in particularthe potential for adequate child supervision from the dwelling and the capacityof the design to induce in each householdthe desire to contribute to the spontaneousmaintenance of the scheme as a whole.This last seems to stem directly from thegeneral sense of ownership inducedthroughout the scheme, while the maintenance of security directly derives froman inherent capacity of the arrangementto provide for adequate surveillance.

3 Beyond these concerns there remainsthe demand for the dwelling to be asresponsive as possible to the varyingneeds of the individual. This issue turnson the problematic notion of "built-in"flexibility; that is on the inherent capacityof the environment to be modified inaccordance with the inhabitant's changingneeds. In order to meet this option weattempted to provide more than one livingspace and to allow for bedrooms to

double as either play or living spaces.

Before designing the prototype we hadto translate these rather broad issues intoa set of specific criteria for a housingprototype that could be applied with equalease in either New York City or elsewherein the State. It was thought that with onlyminor adjustments this prototype shouldbe equally applicable in either urban orsuburban situations, at densities whichwould be capable of not only promotingsocial interaction but also of assuringeconomic viability. With this model weintended to bring to the city dwellermany of the immediate amenities that thesuburbs have to offer, most particularlythe private house with its private yard,while at the same time proffering to thesuburban home owner a pattern ofdevelopment which would create thatspecific sense of neighborhood that oftenseems best to be found within the city. Thespecific relationships that follow aretypical of those which played a criticalrole in determining the final form ofurban low rise housing now being builtin Brownsville.

in the units themselves we tried to reflectthe necessity in the case of a large familyfor the overall living space to be capableof simultaneous and conflicting use bydifferent family members and for the otherspaces, bedrooms in particular, to becapable of being acoustically isolated.In this respect we saw the public porchesand stoops as providing an alternativeto the private terrace.

13

In order to induce a balance betweenpropriety and community we sought toprovide as many units as possible withtheir private entrance directly on thestreet, while at the same time clusteringthese entrances around public stoops.This had the immediate effect of limitingthe rise and extent of internal public staircases and eliminating corridors entirely.In order to maintain security and to provide for immediate child supervision,the living spaces were to be disposedso as to afford easy surveillance overboth the public street and the privateyard. Hence all of the larger family unitshave a double aspect. Apart from crossventilation this double aspect would alsoassure that at least one living space wouldhave an appropriate orientation.

In general our criteria were derived morefrom the single family terrace house thanfrom the multi-family high rise building.At the next scale above the house wesought to achieve a sense of territorialityby striving for outdoor spaces that would

clearly differentiate between private, Anthony Pangaro UDCsemi-public and public space. Finally, Kenneth Frampton IAUS

14 The Institute for Architectureand Urban Studies

Kenneth FramptonPeter Wolf

The New York State Urban DevelopmentCorporation

Theodore LiebmanAnthony PangaroJ. M. Kirkland

Exhibition

Models

Latif Abdulmalik, Randall Korman,George Raustiala, Jr.

Drawings

Victor Caliandro, Carl Larson, Glen Olin,Paul Rosen, Peter Saitta,Thomas Schumacher

Low Rise High Density Prototype

As the site model on the opposite pageindicated the initial prototype was predicated on a system of inset off streetparking, shown in the top left hand corner.The alternative to this system was tohave been chevron parking, off a controlled street of narrower width, shown atthe bottom on the right in the test application to the Brooklyn site these parkingprinciples had to be abandoned due tothe necessity to park in groups. Similarlythe prototypical units themselves shownon this page were subject to modificationparticularly in respect of fenestrationand means of access. The New York Statefire code would not permit the continuous cross wall to cross wall fenestrationshown in both the street and mewsprototypes. By a similar token it was notpossible to project the stoop access stairsout on to the sidewalk as shown in thestreet prototype. The stringent economicdevelopment of the prototype in relationto mix and density requirements alsoinvolved the loss of private outside openspace , in the form of balconies, tothe two layers of apartments over thestreet duplexes.

Low Rise High Density Prototype:Prototypical Unit Types Above-streetunit; beiow-mews unit

Low Rise High Density Prototype:Site Model

The Museum of Modern Art

I I I

Organizing Issues and PrototypicalElements

This prototype based on the constraintsof a typical 200 foot by 800 foot New YorkCity block was designed to establish thefollowing conditions.

1 To group dwellings on the block in sucha way as to both preserve the spatialprofile of the street and at the same time tocreate a sense of neighborhood.

2 To arrange for as many private entrancesas possible to open directly off the streetand at the same time to minimize undesignated internal space.

3 To control the size and location of playspaces for young children and to providefor their direct surveillance from thedwelling.

4 To minimize unseen-non-active placesand to promote easy recognition ofneighbors, through limited access and theprovision of 'spontaneous' surveillanceover entry to the cluster.

5 To provide private exterior spaces (yards)for as many units as possible and toclearly define and articulate in respect ofuse not only public and private spaces butalso semi-public spaces such as stoops.

6 To provide accessible and secure storagefor bicycles, carriages, snow tires, etc.

7 To assure reasonable orientation for atleast one living space plus throughventilation for all units.

8 To provide at least two separate livingspaces for the larger family units so as toallow for the separation of differentliving activities and to accommodatecertain variations in life style.

9 To limit the walk up access to two andone half floors from the street level tothe highest and smallest apartments.

10 To limitwalking distance from parkingspace to unit to somewhere within theneighborhood of 100 feet.

As projected the prototype was to consistof four main elements: the street unit,the mews unit, the mews itself and thepublic stoop in relation to the insetparking.

STATE OF THE ART HOUSINGLOW RISE HIGH DENSITY HOUSING

mmft}?1

no domain or spatial definition

large user population

minimal recognition of neighbors

no visual or aural contact

children piay areas remote from <

undifferentiated expansive spaces

difficult to assign or find childn

minimal recognition of neighbors

dangerous elevators, corridors A yards

unseen and inactive spaces

residents isolated from activity

upkeep of elevators, lobbies A corridors

undesigned territories A responsibilies

children play in circulation

materials offer minimal resilience

no useful private exterior space

no private outdoor storage

isolation from social gathering places

many units with no direct sunlight o

through ventilation

blocks sun to outdoor spaces

blocks views to outdoor spaces

usually out of scale with neighborhood

Inappropriate to needs A expectations of

Identifies low income populations visui

dwellings force single lifestyle on all users

<

<

<

<

<

-<

<

©

SENSE OFCOMMUNITY

CHILDSUPERVISION

3 SECURITY

4 MAINTENANCE

5 LIVABILITY

RESPONSIVENESSTO CONTEXT

7 FLEXIBILITY

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

cluster dwellings to encourage neighborhood

limit numbers of users of semi- private spaces

visual recognition A interaction

organize common activities to |

control size A location of play ar

maintain visual A aural contact

maintain proximity to play areas

provide private exterior speces

minimize unseen, non- active places

promote recognition of neighbors

maximize activity A overview of common

exterior spaces

define public A private outdoor spaces

individual access

provide private exterior spaces

provide accessible A secure storage

for bicycles A carriages

assure sunlight A thru venting in all units

respect scale, light A views of existing corr

define pidiiic A private outdoor space

reflect aspirations of users

integrate buildings visually

hold existing street lines

allow varied use of spaces for

slternate life styles

devise application of building elements

for range of sites

articulate outdoor space for multiple usei

p """C

/\f;<j

» A]

I i i iKtontlty 1 ' "

MEWSUNIT

MEWS

The Museum of Modern Art

llMUUIUUIIlillLlI Ilill 11111 111! 11111 III

Alternative Site Configurations in theNew York City Grid

The initial prototype configuration wasbased on the typical mid-town avenue andstreet hierarchy. The proto-typical singleblock layout anticipated a form of mixeddevelopment in which medium to highrise structures are built on the avenueswith the low rise high density developmentbeing restricted to the cross streets.In the multiple block layout a pattern ofalternative street modifications wasenvisaged in which every other streetwould become a controlled street ofnarrower width than normal, withchevron parking ranged on either side ofthe central access. Given a fixed densityof between 70 to 90 units per acre andexcluding any high density developmenton the avenues, this controlled streetapproach would appear to be capable ofyielding as much as 50% parking at gradewithin the grid.

Typical Cluster

A detail of the multiple block layout,showing location of the 2 and 3 bedroomstreet duplexes and 3 and 4 bedroommews duplexes. Entrances to the mewsspaces are via a passage through thestreet block at one end and an entry past apublic stoop and laundry at the other. Itwas intended that the stoop and laundryshould provide some form of spontaneoussurveillance over this entry.

SMGLE BLOCK70-90 (lu./acre30-25% parking

MULTIPLE BLOCK

70-90 da /acre50 - 30% parking

block and

block center block end

th

01

' ID

Typical Mews Unit Section

18 Prototypical Mews Unit

The prototypical 39 foot square mews unitconsists of two upper and two lowerduplexes. All the lower duplexes comprisethree bedrooms on the lower floor, halfsunk into the ground, and a dining/kitchenand a living room on the upper floor.The right hand lower duplex takes a'borrow bay' bedroom duplex. The upperduplexes comprise dining/kitchen andliving on the lower level and three bedrooms on the upper level. The whole unitsection is sunk 4'-0" into the groundproducing a 4'-9" stoop above grade inboth the mews and the street units.

Ground Floor

Third Floor

First Floor

Second Floor

Typical Street Unit Section

Prototypical Street UnitThe prototypical 39 foot square street unitconsists of a 2 bedroom duplex and3 bedroom duplex on the two lower floors,each half sunk into the ground. Each ofthe upper floors accommodates a1 bedroom and a 2 bedroom apartment.The 2 and 1 bedroom apartments on theupper levels are fed by a central publicstair which works on a scissor principlein order to provide an alternative meansof escape, via the lower level to the street.A bridge link to the mews units at rooflevel is provided in the prototypicalversion in order to give escape accessto the public stairs of the street units.These escapes were later found to beunnecessary. The plans on this page alsoshow details of the mews entry, wherethe adjacent unit at the elevated gradelevel is a 2 room apartment.

The Museum of Modern Art! iiuu urn uiu uiu uiii urn inn inn inn

19I I I T

aaGround Floor /

Typical 2/3 Bedroom Duplexes

First Floor /

Atypical 1 Bedroom Entry Apartment

5

Typical 2/3 Bedroom Duplexes

J"

Second Floor /

Typical 1/2 Bedroom Apartment

Typical View from Cul-de-Sac Mews toStreet Marcus Garvey Park VillageUrban Renewal, New York City Rendering by Craig Hodgetts

Site Plan, Marcus Garvey Park VillageUrban Renewal. Letters A through F showthe location of the unit types shown onpages 22 and 23.

1ULLtUr4- fTTfnTPj]]

1&0

The Institute for Architecture andUrban Studies

Arthur BakerKenneth FramptonPeter Wolf

AssistantsGeorge SneadRichard DeanRichard Wolkowitz

Consultants

David Todd & AssociatesAssociate Architect

Lehr Associates Mechanical EngineerLev Zetlin & Associates

Structural EngineerFinley & Madison Associates

Associate Structural EngineerFalk Associates Cost ConsultantPeter G. Rolland & Associates

Landscape Consultant

Exhibition

Models

George Raustiala, Jr., Dale Flick, DannyHoffman, Niki Logis, Gustav Rosenlof,Charles Von Schmidt, Peter Szilagyi,Tsun-Kin Tarn, Ivan Zaknic

Drawings

M. Tulga Alpay, Peter W. Charapko,Sergio Zori, Eleanor Klein

Aerial PhotoPeter Szilagyi

Application of the Prototype to the Marcus Garvey ParkVillage Urban Renewal Plan, Brownsville, New York

Site Context

Before 1945 Oceanhill-Brownsville waspredominantly settled by Jews. After theSecond World War its ethnic characterchanged as the more prosperous members of the middle class began to moveout of the area. This created a vacuumthat was largely filled by Blacks andPuerto Ricans who were relocated in thearea after having been displaced byseveral large urban renewal projectsthroughout the city. The availability ofhousing in Brownsville enabled theWelfare Department to flood the area withwelfare recipients so that the housingstock, initially capable of providing soundyet inexpensive accommodation, soonbegan to be overcrowded, and in a short

while its fabric began to disintegrate.In 1968, under the auspices of the FederalModel Cities Program, Brownsvillebecame incorporated within the centralBrooklyn Model Cities area. Around thesame time, a Title 1 Urban Renewalproject, called Marcus Garvey ParkVillage, was designated within the Brownsville district for redevelopment as aresidential community of moderatedensity. A portion of this area is now toserve as a pilot site for the IAUS/UDClow rise housing prototype.

provision with public transit. Althoughboth these streets have been commerciallydeveloped to meet the intense serviceneeds of a population that is still largelypedestrian, there is nonetheless evidenceof a decline in this activity which it ishoped the redevelopment of the area willreverse. Adjacent to the site, Betsy HeadMemorial Park together with Betsy HeadPlayground, provide recreation facilitiesand play space for the bulk of the population in the Brownsville district.

A strong and determined base existswithin the community which recognizesthe area's potential and is willing to workand increase private investment tostimulate redevelopment. This strengthof commitment has been expressed atcommunity meetings and during discussions with the community representatives of the Model Cities BrownsvilleArea Committee; a subcommittee withinthe larger Central Brooklyn Model CitiesProgram. It is hoped that the projectedlow rise high density housing will proveto be a catalyst in this effort at repairingthe fabric of the community, at a scalewhich will relate more effectively to thespecialized housing needs of the entirearea.

21

The site, comprising ten blocks roughlydelineated by Rockaway Avenue, andBlake, Newport and Hopkinson streets,comprises some 12Vi acres of vacant flatland. This land is subdivided into relatively large parcels. Livonia Avenue, withan elevated IRT track running down itsentire length, divides the site into twosectors situated to the north and southof the track. To the East of RockawayAvenue are located the large publichousing developments of Brownsville,Tilden and Van Dyke. Their prominentphysical presence is to be felt throughoutthe entire area, while to the west ofHopkinson (both north and south ofLivonia), there are tracts of semi-detachedhousing with quiet tree lined streets thatsuggest the on-going intimate characterof family living.

Sutter and Rockaway Avenues are stillthe dominant commercial corridors in thearea, due to their proximity to the bulk ofthe housing and to their convenient

Modification of the Prototype:The application of the IAUS/UDC low risehousing model to the Marcus GarveyPark Village Urban Renewal Areanaturally involved considerable modification to the form of the original prototype.In the first instance the division of thesite into two by the IRT elevated trackrunning along the length of LivoniaAvenue created a zone in the center ofthe development which had to be allocatedto parking, since the Renewal Planrequired the housing to be separatedfrom the evident noise source of theelevated transit, by a 100 foot set back oneither side of the avenue. This meant thatinstead of distributing the parkingrequirement evenly in lots throughout theentire scheme, as in the prototype, therewas no choice but to group the parkingfirst around the spine of the IRT and thenin two parking lots at the northern andsouthern extremities of the development.

The second major modification to the

ooo

22 Mews Unit Type A Plan

1 Duplex Three & Four Bedrooms2 Duplex Three Bedrooms

Mews Unit Type B Plan

3 Duplex Five Bedrooms

4 Duplex Five Bedrooms

Street Unit Type C Plan

5 Duplex Three Bedroom

6 Apartments Two Bedrooms

4Second Floor

6Second Floor

Third Floor

Third Floor

Third Floor

Ground Floor

3Ground Floor

First Floor

First Floor

5Ground Floor First Floor

2

Second Floor

The Museum of Modern

liMiummiiiiiiiiii

First Floor

Street Unit Type D Plan

7 Duplex Two Bedrooms8 Apartments One Bedroom

7Ground Floor Second Floor Third Floor

OQQ

M JK )

First Floor

Street Unit Type E & Type E1 Plans

9 Duplex Two Bedroom10 Laundry (E1)

11 Apartments One Bedroom

10First Floor Third FloorGround Floor Seoond Floor

13Second Floor Third Floor

Street Unit Type F Plan

, 12 Commercial/Efficiency Units

13 Apartments 1 Bedroom

12First Floor

Mews Unit Elevations

Rear Elevation

Typical Street Elevation

Typical Block Section

The Museum of Modern Art

in en en

Front Elevation

Model of Typical Mews Space withStreet Unit beyond.

mm tmy0Bmyjdlmp»

�yt

Photo: Dorothy Alexander

prototype arose out of the block allocation available for development which forabout a third of the land availablecomprised only half blocks 100 feet deep.It was clearly uneconomical to developthese shallower sites with Street Unitsin front and partial Mews Units to the rear,and so a decision was made to developmost of these half blocks as cul-de-sacs,flanked by Mews Units.

As in the original prototype there are twobasic types of units although the natureand the number of variations of thesetypes have increased. Nevertheless twobasic four story types still parallel thosedeveloped for the prototype. These are:

1 A Type C Street Unit (6 Dwellings) comprising 2/Three Bedroom duplexes atgrade with two floors over; each flooraccommodating 2/Two Bedroomapartments.

2 A Type A Mews Unit (4 Dwellings) comprising Three and Four Bedroom duplexesat grade with 2/Three Bedroom duplexesover.

The main variations to the Type C StreetUnit comprise:

1 A Type D Street Unit (5 Dwellings) whichallows for a passage entry to the mews,with typical upper floors as for a Type Cand a Two Bedroom duplex at grade.

2 A Type E Street Unit (2 Dwellings) with alaundry at grade and 2/One Bedroomapartments over.

The main variation to the Type A mewsunit consists of a Type B Mews Unit(2 Dwellings) comprising 2/Five Bedroom Duplexes, one placed above theother.

Planning Principles:

The principle of limited stair access andthe provision of open space is the sameas in the prototype, i.e. in all the largerfamily units (3 bedrooms and over) accessis either half a floor up or one and a halffloors up. All these units are duplexes andhave direct access either to a privateyard at grade or to a private terraceelevated two floors above grade. In thesmaller family 2 Bedroom apartments, theupper limit of access is two and a halffloors above grade and there is no outdoor private space. With the exceptionof the 2 Bedroom apartments which use a

public stair, there is private accessdirectly from grade throughout.

In general the planning principle for thedisposition of these units involves usingthe Street Units to form an enclosingterrace containing all the private yardsand the semi-public mews spaces. Theselatter spaces are flanked by the MewsUnits and constitute off street play areasfor smaller children. Where the MewsUnits are arranged in a cul-de-sacformation, opening directly off the street,they are protected from the latter by anenclosing wall.

In principle the application to the MarcusGarvey Renewal Area is basically arefinement of the prototype. Apart fromthe adaptation of the typical 2 Bedroomapartment floor for application over thecommercial frontage on RockawayAvenue and over the community facilityon Chester, there are no other variations.

Community Facilities:

There is a limited amount of shoppingfrontage which has been expresslylocated on Rockaway Avenue in order tostrengthen the existing commercial life.The community facility is also located inclose proximity to this frontage in order tobe able to reinforce the overall publicnature of this part of the site. Thisarrangement assures that the handicapped are conveniently placed in respectto the major community services. Theonly other community facilities, apartfrom the existing churches, are two daycare centers situated at the extremitiesof the site.

One of these spaces, the courtyard areabounded by the new building on Rockaway, Dumont and Chester, will bereserved as a quiet area for use by theold and the handicapped.

Data:

The site comprises 12.5 acres andaccommodates a total of 626 dwellingswith 300 parking spaces. Nearly 40% ofthe dwellings are the larger family unitscomprising 180 three bedroom units,40 four bedroom units and 28 five bedroomunits. The remaining 378 units consistof 292 two bedroom units, 63 one bedroomunits and 23 one room units. A certainproportion of the latter are at grade andallocated for use by the handicapped.In addition there is a community facilityof 5,000 square feet and a day care centerof 12,000 square feet, as well as theoverall allocation of 8,000 square feetfor commercial use.

27

Open Space:

Since the site occurs in close proximity toBetsy Head Memorial Playground theprovision of open space throughout thescheme falls into two main categories.The first of these are the mews spaceswithin the blocks which on account oftheir limited size will be primarilyrestricted to passive play. The secondcategory constitutes the five mediumsized open spaces (two of them locatedadjacent to the day care centers) whichwill be variously structured to accommodate the active play of young childrenand to provide sitting out space for adults.

Q^LLTT^Tr!

Typical View of Cluster Element FoxHills, Staten Island, New York Renderingby Craig Hodgetts

Application of the Prototype to Community Board 2Fox Hills, Staten Island, New York

The Institute for Architecture andUrban Studies

Arthur BakerPeter EisenmanPeter Wolf

AssistantsRobert J. SerryMargaret DeamerRandall Korman

Exhibition

Models

Randall Korman, Timothy Wood, LatifAbdulmalik, Livio Dimitriu, Everett Foy,

Le Roy Heck, Stuart Nezin, AnthonyPergola

Drawings

Ellen Cheng Koutsoftas, MarkMarkiewicz

Planning Principles and theOrganization of Open Space:In older urban areas the uniformity of thestreet grid tends to limit the richness andvariety possible in development patterns.While certain aspects of a regular structure, namely those arising out of vehicularmovement and utility connections, arenecessary even in a non-urban context,physical design at suburban density is notas restricted by such stringent economicand technical considerations as areinvariably imposed by the infrastructuresof the urban core.

Since a large part of an individual'scapacity to function and sustain himselfin any situation depends on his spontaneous comprehension of the environment, this design is concerned withforming settlement patterns whose structure, function and meaning are readilyunderstandable and of direct significanceto the resident.

The Fox Hills prototype postulates a newconfiguration and structure for suburbanliving. The intention is to evoke individualidentity through collective form; to induce,through physical structure, a sense ofcommunity that is not often found insuburban situations.

The open cluster is a concept which isintended to replace, as a primary structuring device, the street and square ofthe traditional city. It is not merely theshape which imparts meaning and utilityto the open cluster, but rather how thisshape relates to other modifications andchanges in the context as a whole. Aseries of 'urban squares' or 'clusters' in asuburban situation can only evoke asemblance of urbanity, where clusteringis used merely to engender superficialformal associations that have little to dowith the essential nature of suburbanorder. An urban square is essentiallycontingent upon the existence of a streetgrid and in the absence of a grid itmerely becomes a nostalgic allusion.Equally, the urban street depends for itsarticulation and inflection upon thesquare. Lacking the possibility of suchreciprocal relationships in a suburbancontext, the traditional street is no longerable to provide a sense of place.

A suburban settlement structure may bestand most logically be derived from theessential relation between the availablebasic elements — the automobile and thedwelling unit. In a suburban situation, thecluster as a primary structuring device isnot merely a "public green" or surrogatesquare, but also functions as the streetas well. The prime organizing principle ofthe open cluster at Fox Hills is the relationship of the dwelling unit to parking.These elements are arranged so that theindividual has to traverse the centralgreen space of the cluster. This organizedmovement relates not only the differentscales of the "street" and the "green," butalso the scale of the "street" to that ofthe individual unit.

The unit at Fox Hills has been modifiedfrom the form of the initial prototype. Thereduced overall size of the individual unitspermits the integration of open airterraces. The building facades, because ofthese set-back private terraces, arehighly articulated and textured. Despitethis, they are composed out of a fewcomponents that are manipulated indifferent ways. In addition to providingpurely visual interest, these facadesdistinguish front from back and signifyhow one cluster joins to the next. In shortthey provide a visual key as to how thedifferent elements join into a complex yetunderstandable structure.

29

I

30

OOO

G G G G

-OOOOO

\JJJD

mmmH

oEH

o

onHH=H

hhH

ill

nilHEnum

nilr>SF

mmHE

n

h

0 mi

H

HH

mi

r4r

h

mmh

Stopped Row Unit

a. Day Care and Community Facilityb. Rear access to Ground Floor Duplexc. Private open spaced. Stoop, monitoring green and Tot Lot

e. Easy access to parking, view of carf. Public Green

g. Private open space balconyh. Access to Pedestrian Greenwayi. Access to dwelling, activates Public Greenj. Parking Lot serves both Clusters

illlo

HHH

111

mi6

mi

in eh

5?

K

RIHHEHE

6

Photo: Thomas Air View

1 Site Context

2 Site Plan

3 Criteria for Development of

4 Cluster Type A

5 Cluster Type B

6 Cluster Type C

Site Context

Staten Island, previously a rural areanaturally isolated on the periphery ofNew York City, is now in the process ofbeing rapidly transformed into yet anothersuburbanized borough. What was once afarm is now a subdivision, and what wasonce a quiet community is now overcrowded and used as a route to newerdeveloped areas.

Fox Hills, a 61 acre site, located just off

the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge entrance,is the classic example of a communitycaught up in these changes. Once abeautifully appointed estate and countryclub, Fox Hills has steadily been altered insize and character to accommodate thepressures of urbanization. Major transportation routes and the building of largeapartment complexes have over-burdenedthe community facilities, while the threatexists that such haphazard constructionwill continue on the undeveloped land thatstill remains. The population growthengendered by such large scale development has not been met by the provision ofadequate recreational, commercial andcommunity facilities, and the consequencehas been the typical physical and socialinadequacies of a deteriorating urbancommunity.

The fact that vacant land is available inFox Hills, and the presence of an activeand concerned community, create anopportunity to plan a comprehensivedevelopment and to provide the neededfacilities for the surrounding neighborhood. Located in the Community Board #2area, Fox Hills has been the object ofconcern for several years. Recently theCommunity Board invited the UDC toanalyze the site and study ways to achievea comprehensive plan for the area. Whilethe plan has yet to be developed, UDChas been carrying out engineering studiesand will continue to collaborate with theplanning board.

The present overall suburban character ofStaten Island suggests that the futureresidents of Fox Hills will want open spacefor recreation and leisure-time activityand will also wish to have a strong senseof identity with their neighborhood andcommunity. In addition, they will desire to

be home owners and by and large willhave to rely on the automobile as a meansof transportation. The design of a suburban variation of the IAUS/UDC low risehousing prototype is an attempt tosatisfy these needs. Such units may bejust as readily sold as cooperatives, asthey may be purchased or rented. Thisversion of the prototype attempts to satisfythe requirements of suburban living whileoffering amenities not usually associatedeither with standard suburban development or with the apartment complexespresently being erected on Staten Island.

! Site Plan

A limit of 280 low rise units was set as aninitial increment to be studied on a 7.5acre site. In order to demonstrate theapplication of the three different clustertypes to the site, the number of units andthe size of the site was increased slightly.

In the plan as shown there are 24 simplexelements with eight units per elementtotaling 192 units and 22 duplex elementswith six units per element totaling 132units.

The mix of units works out to 92 onebedroom units (28%); 188 two bedroomunits (58%); 44 three bedroom units(14%) which compares almost exactly tothe desired 25%-60%-15% mix.

The number of parking spaces provided is331 which is slightly more than the desiredratio of 1:1. No unit is more than 200 feetfrom its parking space. The net areaincluding units, green space and parkingis 9.8 acres, which given the limitationon the number of units, works outto just over thirty-one units per acre.However, within the area of the site,necessary for the demonstrationof all three clustering schemes, it ispossible to add both units and parkingspaces so as to increase the net densityto about 42 units per acre.

This figure is reduced to a gross densityof 38 units per acre when the grossacreage including the public right of wayand the pedestrian greenways are addedto the net acreage.

The site plan demonstrates one possible

31

First Floor

garden

Ground Floor

bedroom

bedroom

dining

living

dining

living

Second Floor Third Floor

dining

living

dining

living

Cluster Unit Plans organization using all three cluster types

to provide for both variety and diversity,Duplex 3 Bedrooms and at the same time rational and eco-Apartments: 2 & 1 Bedroom nomic land use. The site plan as shown

attempts to provide both a sense ofindividual identification and communityassociation through the organization andrelationship of open space.

3 Criteria for Development ofCluster Type A

Cluster Type A was developed to satisfycriteria in addition to those alreadyelaborated for the prototype, which distinguish a suburban as opposed to anurban site:

First, the possibility for each unit to havesome private open space. Second, thepossibility for more public open space ingeneral. Third, the possibility of easyaccess to parking and a parking space foreach unit.

These criteria led to a program whichprovides each unit with a private garden ora balcony. The private gardens are locatedat the rear. As a result the principalentrance to each unit is from a front stooplocated on the public green.

Stepped Row Unit Plans

. Parking is placed as a part of the publicApartments: 2 & 1 Bedroom open space so that the majority of people

must walk across the green to reach theircars. This provides continuous monitoringfor the green and a level of activity whichprevents the green from being merely anunused formal space.

All balconies overlook the green, providinggood vistas and further monitoring. Achildren's play space is provided alongthe edge of the green adjacent to the frontstoops. This area is landscaped so as toseparate it from the green itself. The playarea will have movable play equipment.

Cluster Type A is essentially an L-shapeof units opposite parking areas. The publicspace in cluster Type A is formed by placing these L-shapes in a parallel sequencewhich form a U-shape of buildings enclosing a public green. The green in clusterType A opens out to a pedestrian greenwaywhich provides a connection betweenadjacent clusters and at the same time provides access to the community facilities.

4 Cluster Type A

Diagram four shows one possiblegrouping for Type A clusters. In generalsuch a repeated use of Type A clustersprovides for an economic land use at amedian density. On the other hand, repetition of this cluster type beyond fourclusters, fails to develop the variety anddifferentiation possible, within a suburbancontext, as between one grouping and thenext.

5 Cluster Type B

Cluster Type B differs from cluster Type Ain that the public green does not open onto the pedestrian greenway, but ratherturns inward from it. Parking is arrangedin L's. This places continuous parking onthe street, making it dull and uninviting.Again when this type of cluster is repeatedthe context lacks differentiation.

6 Cluster Type C

Cluster Type C combines aspects ofTypes A and B. Its units close both thestreet and greenway views, producing U-shaped enclosures around the publicgreen. Its major advantage is economicin that it provides for maximum densityand land use. It suffers from the samedisadvantages as Type A and B whenrepeated.

0 5 10

34

I i^fcnn

Cluster Unit Elevations Front Elevation

Front Elevation

35

Model of Typical ClusterPhoto: George Cserna

Model of Stepped Row Units

Perspective of Stepped Row UnitsDrawing by Ellen Cheng Koutsoftas.

Close-up of Units showingsystem of stoop access.

The Museum of Modern ArtlllUllUUIllllllllllllllllllllllll I

Photo: Richard Frank

The Institute for Architectureand Urban Studies

The Institute for Architecture and UrbanStudies came into being in 1967 as aresult of an exhibition held in The Museumof Modern Art under the title The NewCity: Architecture and Urban Renewal.It was established as an independent nonprofit organization which would attemptto determine a more specific role forprofessional architects and planners inthe shaping of the public environment.From the outset it chose to emphasize thepart to be played by physical form in determining the nature and quality of our lifestyle. It wished to concern itself not withthe individual free standing buildingnor with the city but rather with thatcrucially important intermediate scale,which consists of an aggregate of buildings; namely those spatial complexes,of limited extent, that inevitably exert acritical impact on the quality of our dailylives. In this respect the Institute was justas much opposed to the Utopian tabularasa tradition of modern architecture, asit was to the systems approach of urbanplanning. Furthermore, the Institute sawits public role as one in which its energiesshould not be directed toward advocatingthe interests of a particular group. Inthis it saw its primary task as that ofhelping to reconcile the often opposedinterests of many different constituencies,from the large public agency to theindividual client.

The projects undertaken by the Institutesince its inception directly exemplify thenature of its concerns. In particular, itsinitial studies for the New York City

Planning Commission: first, a study of theKingsbridge area in the Bronx, made inorder to determine the possibility fordesign and intervention at the intermediate scale, while respecting theexisting context; second, a study intostreet typology involving the developmentof alternative physical proposals for twodifferent sections of Manhattan, undertaken to demonstrate the impact of zoningon street design. Around the same time,the Institute was commissioned by a consortium of New York State agencies tocarry out the comparative analysis of newtowns, both here and in Europe, examiningthem from the point of view of theircapacity to respond to structural change.Since then, the Institute has worked for

the Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment on a study of street form asan element in an overall strategy for thepiecemeal improvement of the urbanenvironment. This study, which attemptsto define the nature of the interfacebetween public and private space, willform the substance of a book to be

published in the fall of 1973.

The Institute's conviction as to the relevance of aggregate built form to thequality of everyday life, led it to initiate in1971 this present study into low risehousing, and eventually to its collaboration with the Urban Development Corporation in the design of prototypical lowrise housing. Without this support from apublic agency, the Institute would nothave been able to bring these particularstudies to the point of their realization, inboth an urban and a suburban context.As the implementation of these projectscommences, it is the Institute's intentionto carry this research and design procedure a stage further, in order to monitorthe performance of these prototypes asbuilt; not only from the point of view oftheir meeting actual user needs, but alsowith respect to their inherent capacity,to define a hierarchy of public, semi-public and private space. It is hoped thatthe initiation of such 'feed-back' researchwill lead not only to the evolution of amore critical attitude towards the spatialand social effect of built form, but alsoto the refinement of public housing policies to meet more specific needs.

The current state of regional urbanizationand the constant escalation in urbangrowth, causes the Institute to see the

maintenance of a liveable and appropriateurban environment as a task of the greatest urgency. Given the tendency of ourpresent mode of production to erode anddiffuse not only our existing urban centersbut also their surrounding reserves ofrural and open land, we feel that it is of theutmost importance to create and maintaincompact forms of settlement, irrespectiveof their location. In our opinion, this taskcalls for the creation of new institutionswhich are, at one and the same time, bothinnovative and conservative; innovativein the sense of being able to meet thedemands of an urban situation which is

ever subject to the pressures of industrialization; conservative in the sense that itbecomes increasingly necessary toacknowledge the continuing validity ofcertain traditional patterns of settlementsuch as the contained street. Without adoubt, such patterns still constitute a largepart of the public environment and, assuch, they offer an ever present opportunity for the social and formal rearfirma-tion of urban space, as a realm otsignificant human activity.

Arthur BakerPeter EisenmanKenneth FramptonPeter Wolf

The Museum of Modern I

The Institute for Architectureand Urban Studies

IAUS Fellows

Stanford AndersonPeter D. Eisenman DirectorWilliam EllisKenneth FramptonMario GandelsonasPeter Wolf Chairman

Visiting Fellows

Diana AgrestArthur BakerVincent MooreRalph Warburton

Prototype Design Development

Kenneth FramptonPeter Wolf

Marcus Garvey Urban Renewal Area,Brooklyn, N. Y.Arthur BakerKenneth FramptonPeter Wolf

AssistantsGeorge SneadRichard DeanRichard Wolkowitz

Fox Hills Staten Island, N. Y.

Arthur BakerPeter EisenmanPeter Wolf

AssistantsRobert SerryMargaret DeamerRandall Korman

The Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies8 West 40 StreetNew York City

Exhibition

Kenneth Frampton EditorBarbara Littenberg CoordinatorCraig Hodgetts Renderings

Catalogue

Kenneth Frampton EditorWade Zimmerman Designer

Printed by Colorcraft Offset IncorporatedTypography by Unbekant Typo, Inc.

Photographic conversions by John N. Schaedler, IncPRINTED IN U.S.A.

The New York State Urban Development Corporation

UDC Officers

Edward J. Logue President and Chief Executive OfficerJohn G. Burnett Executive Vice PresidentRobert G. Hazen General Manager

Prototype Development

Office of the Chief of Architecture:

Theodore Liebman Chief of ArchitectureAnthony L. Pangaro Designer and Project ManagerJ. Michael Kirkland Designer

Marcus Garvey Urban Renewal Area, Brooklyn, N Yand Fox Hills, Staten Island, N. Y.

New York City Regional Office:William H. Hayden Regional DirectorJerome B. Poe Assistant Director for OperationsJames E. Robinson Director for the Borough of BrooklynLewis Fechter Project Director/ Planning ServicesMatthew Cannizzaro Project Director/ Staten IslandChristos Loupas Regional Office Architect/ PlannerFred Teicher Regional Director of Engineering Services

Design and Construction DivisionHerbert A. Tessler Director

Melvin H. Eisenberg Senior Coordinating ArchitectThomas T. Jeffries Associate Coordinating ArchitectBenedict Russo Building Code Officer

Office of the General CounselStephen A. Lefkowitz General CounselPaul S. Byard Associate CounselChristine A. Flynn Assistant CounselRichard Kahan Assistant Counsel

Child Care Facility Prototype Development

T'ing C. Pei Acting Director of Civic Development

Jenny M. Wadsworth Project Assistant, Civic DevelopmentA. Edwin Wolf Assistant Architect, Business and Civic Development

William H. Hayden, Regional Director for New York CityJames E. Robinson Borough Director, New York City RegionBetty Jo Parker Project Assistant, New York City Region

Theodore Liebman Chief of Architecture

Anthony L. Pangaro Designer and Project Manager for the First PrototypeJ. Michael Kirkland Designer for the First Prototype

Child Care Facility Execution and Application

William Vitto and James L. Robinson ArchitectsReynold RadocciaHerbert BennettRichard Vitto

Marcus Garvey Urban Renewal Area, Brooklyn, N. Y.

Builder/ Developer:

Kreisler, Borg, Florman and Galay Development Corporation

Central Brooklyn Model Cities:

Horace L. Morancie Assistant Administrator and Neighborhood Director

The Museum of Modern Art