The Sweetest Housing Development

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of visiting the Sugar Hill affordable housing development with my studio. From its saw-tooth plan, attention to pre-cast details, and transparency of spaces, this project was not at all what I envisioned when the project architect (David Adjaye Architects) told us that it was for the lowest 10% of AMI households! (Around $15,000/year for a household of 4.)

There are many restrictions for affordable housing projects, which is why they typically look like this:

(View from the roof of Sugar Hill Development) 

Depressing! And check that huge shadow cast by the Greek-cross extrusion of the plan! It'd suck to have no light entering your window!

But David Adjaye's project looks like this:

I mean, what? At first glance, you might think...is this contextual at all?

But from the scale, subtle rose-detailing on the pre-cast concrete facade (which glimmers in just the right way!), and play in transparencies, the project is actually very rooted in its neighborhood (the junction between West Harlem and Washington Heights). There's a pre-school and large (78,000 SF) children's museum, which is rare up on 155th street. The project architect also talked about deriving certain datum lines from the surrounding context, but that's probably more to satisfy zoning than for the users...

A really nice lightwell condition on the ground floor, looking down into a double-height space of the museum.

From the museum, looking up.

A multipurpose space adjacent to the museum. Imagine playing a concert here! (Which my band might just pitch to them!)

Kiddie toilet in the pre-school classroom...pretty cool!

Almost Corbusian roof details...

That unobstructed roof view though.

If you want to learn more about the project, check out Broadway Housing Communities' website: http://www.bhc.org/housing/sugarhill/