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Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind urges in this interview on the social housing renaissance that architects with creative talents are needed to overcome the stigma of social housing.
“More good architects should be involved in social housing construction,” Libeskind told Dezeen. “We need creativity to overcome the stigma of social housing, and we need architects who can invent new ways to create decent, dignified, beautiful and sustainable housing within the limits of budgets.”
“If you are an architect solving housing problems in creative ways, you are a solution to a problem that is in great need.”
Libeskind, whose eponymous studio completed a social housing project in New York last year, believes that creating better quality, low-cost housing is one of the most pressing issues facing the world today.
He believes that many contemporary social housing projects are designed by replicating failed examples of the past and fail to adequately meet people’s needs.
“Too much of what we call ‘social housing’ is just a formula from another era,” he said. “It pops up automatically in a type that’s not too close to the human spirit.”
Libeskind claimed that because of this habit of rethinking the social housing typology, some architects were hesitant to participate in these projects.
“I think the minute you say the words ‘social housing’ people think, ‘I don’t want to be involved in that, let someone else do it’,” he suggested.
“However, the most pressing issue is this: creating better housing for people, making communities better and safer for those who really need help. This is key to the survival of cities, and not just in one place, but around the world.”
Living in social housing is ‘a huge privilege’
Now one of America’s most famous architects, Libeskind’s vision of social housing stemmed from his experience living in a New York City housing cooperative as a teenager in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
After leaving his birth country, Poland, in 1957, Libeskind and his family moved to Israel and then to New York in 1959, living in a United Housing Cooperative in the Bronx.
Founded in 1927 by the United Garment Workers union, it was the first housing development in the United States built under limited equity rules, a home ownership model in which residents purchase shares in the development, giving them the right to occupy one of the homes. housing units.
Libeskind describes how the public and social gathering spaces of the Bronx Co-op gave him a positive view of social housing and influenced his design approach.
“I always say what a privilege it is to live there,” he said. “It taught me a lot.”
“The housing is walk-up apartments without air conditioning, but it has a social life, it has nice communal spaces, it’s tree-lined where people can gather on hot nights, there’s lecture rooms, there’s places for people to gather and watch performances. .”
“It has a cultural feel to it,” Libeskind continued. “It wasn’t windows, walls and stairs, it was a sense of community that really had a big impact on my view of the beauty of social housing.”
Libeskind completed a social housing project in Long Island, New York, last year and another is under construction in Brooklyn. The architect explains that he designs these projects “with people in mind first.”
“People need a sense of security, a beautiful place to gather, a place with a beautiful view, even if their apartment is small,” Libeskind explains. “They need to connect with the people who live on their floor and the people on the street.”
“It all starts with the people and then thinking about how to shape the space based on the project.”
Affordable housing ‘center of the problem we have to solve’
Libeskind claims that for the first time in decades, New York City authorities are beginning to consider social housing as aesthetically pleasing architecture.
“The New York City Public Housing Authority is starting to think about a new generation of social housing that will be wonderful for people,” he said.
“I think it’s a change of perspective because there hasn’t been anything encouraging on this subject for decades.”
He believes that the social housing currently being developed in New York is different and stigmatized from the subsidized housing (commonly known as “projects”) built in the past for low-income families.
Many of these housing projects have poor quality standards and are disconnected from the city, meaning they succumb to class and racial segregation.
“Things have improved in New York, where people are trying to build social housing, not what they used to call ‘projects,’ and starting to realize that to create a great city, you need to focus on affordable housing,” Libeskind said.
“People are realizing that affordable housing is no longer just a footnote,” he continued.
“This is the center of the problem that we as architects, authorities, legislators and politicians must address, because without it we would not have good cities, our cities would be severely segregated between ghettos of the rich and ghettos of the poor.”
In Libeskind’s view, good social housing can improve people’s quality of life and influence the way they treat their environment, affecting both residents and those who live in wider communities and cities.
“Design has a lot to do with making housing a place that people actually want to live in and care for,” he said.
He continued: “By building high-quality housing that people can afford, you’re not just solving the problem of one person in a building for hundreds of people, but the whole community is transformed.”
“The character of the streets, the safety of the community and the sense of belonging – all these dimensions work synergistically when one is really thinking about investing in social housing.”
While architects have a role to play in improving the state of public housing in the United States, Libeskind acknowledges that the primary responsibility lies with government authorities and those who commission projects.
“This is not just a construction issue,” he said. “Architects have a limited role in this, and really, it’s a political and legal issue.”
“We have to encourage politicians to take a different stance on social housing and not just give a nod to a few buildings being built but understand that this is a core feature of our time – we have to be more affordable prices and create integrated communities connected to the city.”
The top portrait of Libeskind is by Stefan Ruiz. Photos of New York’s social housing neighborhoods by Inessa Binenbaum.
social housing renaissance
This article is part of Dezeen’s series on the social housing renaissance Explore the new wave of high-quality social housing being built around the world and ask whether a large-scale return to social housing construction could help tackle affordability issues and homelessness in our major cities.
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