June 2009
On 12 June 2009, Columbia University’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture convened a day-long policy and design workshop with students and faculty to investigate the need and the potential for public housing in the United States. The financial crisis added urgency to this effort to reinvigorate a long-dormant national conversation about public housing, which remains the subject of unjust stigmas and unjustified pessimism. Oriented toward reframing the issue by imagining new possibilities, the workshop explored diverse combinations of architecture and urban policy that acknowledged the responsibilities of government and the limits of the private markets. Principles were discussed, ideas were tested, and scenarios were proposed. These were distributed along a typical regional cross-section, or transect, representing a wide range of settlement patterns in the United States. The transect was broken down into five sectors: Urban Core, Urban Ring, Suburban, Exurban, and Rural. Participants were asked to develop ideas within these sectors, taking into account the contents of an informational dossier that was provided in advance. Results were published in a pamphlet, entitled Public Housing: A New Conversation, that was distributed nationally by mail and at subsequent public events.
GSAPP Students, Faculty, and Colleagues from related institutions, and organizations in and around New York such as The Jersey City Housing Authority, The Center for Urban Pedagogy, and Barnard College. Results published in a pamphlet that was distributed nationally by mail.
