A brownfield in the South Bronx is about to be greened, thanks to a sustainable housing competition conducted by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and AIA New York. An architect-developer team consisting of Grimshaw Architects, Dattner Architects, Phipps Houses, and Jonathan Rose Companies won the competition with a proposal to design 202 units of housing along with commercial and open space on a long, narrow 60,000-acre site. The city is giving the property, a vacant lot and an abandoned rail right-of-way to the development team for $1 to underwrite the project’s affordability requirement.

Named Via Verde, or the Green Way, the project includes an 18-story tower, midrise units and townhouses “threaded like a ribbon through the site,” said Vincent Chang, senior architect at Grimshaw’s New York office. More than half of the housing, which is a mix of rentals and units for sale, will be reserved for low-income residents, with the remaining portion set aside for moderate and middle-income residents.

“A key goal of the project was to provide a diverse range of unit types, making the project as attractive as possible to the community,” he said. “The scheme comprises studios, one, two- and three-bedroom apartments, live-work spaces and townhouses.”

To create this ensemble while maintaining an overall architectural coherency, the design team is exploring a palette of modular, pre-fabricated cladding components that will provide affordability, visual continuity and compositional flexibility, added Chang..

The buildings are arranged around the perimeter of the site, creating a courtyard in the middle. Green roofs and gardens are designed for each building, and the terraced building heights allow for travel between each building. Geothermal groundloops for heating and cooling, photovoltaics, daylighting and cross ventilation, and an on-site farmer’s market will be employed to help the project achieve LEED Gold certification.

Chang stressed that the approach is “holistic.” Practical steps, such as granting residents control over the HVAC systems in their units so they can better monitor their individual energy usage, help to combine innovative sustainable technology with thrift and common sense.

“We thought a lot about the sense of community and vibrancy in an urban environment,” said Chang.

The team is working with landscape architect Lee Weintraub to design a series of passive, productive and recreational gardens, green roofs and open spaces that will be open to every unit, and which will also provide insulation and reduce storm water run-off.

Thirty-two architect-developer teams responded to the request for qualifications, which were reviewed by a jury that included Enrique Norton, principal, TEN Arquitectos; David Burney, commissioner, New York City Department of Design and Construction; Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, Jr.; and Shaun Donovan, HPD commissioner.

“Any project that adds this many units of affordable housing is going to make its mark,” said Lance Jay Brown, a professor of architecture at CUNY and one of the competition organizers. “But we feel like we raised the bar and have begun to open up the debate as to what people can expect from affordable, sustainable housing.”

Construction is expected to begin in mid 2008.

This article first appeared in the February 14, 2007, issue of The Architect’s Newspaper. It has been edited from its original format.