The winning designs for three affordable housing sites, two in Roxbury and one in Jamaica Plain, were previewed last night at a symposium sponsored by the City of Boston at Roxbury Community College.
The sites, part of a green building pilot project, are intended to meet "E+" green design standards — using efficient design and renewable energy sources so well they actually contribute net energy back to the grid. City officials pointed to the diverse designs as ways of incorporating futuristic technology with Boston’s centuries-old heritage, noting that the "slickest" design, net energy wise, had an exterior modeled after the popular 19th Century "Greek revival" style. The projects are expected to break ground this spring and be completed by the fall.
The city called the symposium ahead of planned community meetings to help decide the fate of several larger proposals, and to help set the agenda for new affordable and/or green projects in the city.
"We’re already going beyond the pilot program…and we’re going to apply [e+] to two specific sites, one in Mission Hill on Parker Street and one here in Highland Park," said John Feuerbach, senior development officer at the Department of Neighborhood Development.
Katie Swenson, vice president of Enterprise Community Partners, a design firm specializing in affordable housing, reviewed two projects her firm had worked on – an eco-village in Minneapolis developed at the behest of the community, and a project in the South Bronx that was proposed by New York City.
Landscape Architect Chris Reed, principal of StoSS Landscape Urbanism, discussed work he’s doing in Detroit and several other cities to incorporate productive landscape features, such as rooftop gardens, into urban design.
Phillip Thompson, a professor of urban politics at MIT, discussed innovative designs for distributed utilities, like community-owned, dedicated neighborhood power plants which can more efficiently produce heat and electricity and contribute to economic development by selling excess power back to the grid.
Thompson generated applause when he warned attendees that design decisions made by the city could have far-reaching impacts, and enjoined designers to be thoughtful working with communities where the projects were to be situated. Describing houses he saw being developed in Haiti as part of earthquake relief efforts which lacked quiet areas for kids to do homework, Thompson cautioned that "we embody our prejudices in design."
He spoke about his time in the New York housing sector, in which a $70 million order for windows for new public housing units caused the window factory to revise its entire production line, inadvertently setting the standard for window design for buildings across the city.
