A typical townhouse unit. Ceiling fans and dual-façade op…
A typical townhouse unit. Ceiling fans and dual-façade operable windows encourage natural cooling through cross-ventilation.
View of south façade showing solar array and connection t…
View of south façade showing solar array and connection to community.
Gardening becomes a way of life for residents of the newly-opened Via Verde, a Bronx, N.Y., community built around sustainable principles. Dattner Architects and Grimshaw Architects have teamed together with developers Phipps Houses and Jonathan Rose Cos. to produce this 222-unit, LEED Gold affordable housing community. This lush housing arose out of a competition co-produced by the AIA’s New York Chapter and the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development to fill a city-owned, 60,000-square-foot former brownfield lot along an abandoned rail line. The L-shaped building comprises stepped housing typologies—townhouses, mid-rise duplexes, and tower apartments—that encircle a shared central garden, which, combined with habitable green roofs, contributes to a total of 40,000 square feet of open space for the residents. On the north side of the building, a public plaza will host twice-weekly farmers markets. The south side of the complex is lined with roof gardens within which residents can grow fruits and vegetables, allowing a connection to nature even within Via Verde’s urban setting.
Deane Madsen, Assoc. AIA, LEED Green Associate, is the former associate design editor for ARCHITECT, and still covers architecture and design in Washington, D.C. He earned his M.Arch. at UCLA's Department of Architecture and Urban Design. Follow Deane on Twitter at @deane_madsen.
