Big, sad, uniform blocks designed with lack of inspiration, critical thinking and respect for the tenants they were meant to house. That’s what I see in New York City and Queens. It doesn’t have to be that way and people are proving that they can build better even without major government/public initiatives and developers that often get in the way of good design.

Tonight I visited Into the Open: Positioning Practice , a “showcase of America’s alternative architectural practices”, on display at Parsons Design Center.

I skip video/film installations at museums like the Whitney because they are usually too wacky for my taste but I have DVDs relating to this particular subject matter, so I sat down. What got me thinking was a piece submitted by the Center for Urban Pedagogy which complied various lyrics from Nas and Jay-Z among others together with images of NYC projects like Stapleton and Queensbridge to “explore the relationships between public housing and public perception”. We all know the perception of the projects. People HATE the projects. Everyone knows they are rough and it’s NOT because of (in voice of old white lady) kids listening to rap music. What needs exploring is how to ensure new public housing does not resemble anything like these projects and how to change existing projects to make life better for the families.

Other participants worth a mention are ‘Smith and Others’ who are doing some cool stuff in California. They don’t have a website (what? really?) but I found articles on them here and here.

Also interesting (via CUP) is Code City, the Tenement Museum’s interactive map showing the history and politics of NYC public housing.