Finalists through to next stage of New York housing competition

Many cities face demands to increase the availability of affording housing, a process which involves building on underutilised land. In February 2019, the Big Ideas for Small Lots NYC Competition was launched to address the challenges associated with the development of new residential buildings in restrictive spaces. Now, contest organisers the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and the American Institute of Architects New York (AIANY) have announced the finalists through to the next stage.

The winners, selected by a panel of nine jurors, are listed below:

Anawan/101 + Kane, “Mass Green Living”
Michael Sorkin Studio, “Greenfill Housing as Garden”
OBJ, “Fold and Stack”
Only If, “System for Narrow Living”
Palette Architecture, “More with Less”

The contest followed the announcement made by Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2017 to launch the Housing New York 2.0 plan, building on the success of a previous initiative. The aim is to create 300,000 affordable homes by 2026. However, HPD has already rapidly moved through its inventory of available land, with much of the remaining space including lots that are challenging to develop due to their small size. When the finalists were announced, HPD Commissioner Louise Carroll stated: “The urgency of the affordability crisis requires us to continually push the envelope to meet our city’s diverse housing needs. To unlock some of our most difficult-to-develop sites we needed to take a fresh approach, and taking that leap has clearly paid off.”

The finalists will receive a $3,000 stipend, together with to opportunity to participate in an exhibition and panel discussion at the Center for Architecture. A series of workshops and networking sessions will take place to aid the designers in transforming their submissions into site-specific proposals for Stage II. HPD will then designate one or more of the completed proposals for development.

Lucy Nordberg
TenderStream Head of Research

This competition was first published by TenderStream on 05.02.2019 here

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