NYCHA Residents Present Design Concepts via New Program with City Tech

Greenhouses that could help the NYCHA community engage in urban farming and mitigate food insecurity while providing educational and career development opportunities. A site plan that aims to improve connectivity and pedestrian safety by prioritizing pedestrian traffic flow across the developments.  

Such design concepts were among the proposals developed by a group of NYCHA residents and architecture students from CUNY’s New York City College of Technology (City Tech) as part of the new ARCHscholars program. The free program was a collaboration between NYCHA and City Tech that held its first classes remotely this past spring; it allowed participants to research indoor and outdoor spaces at NYCHA developments and propose design ideas to enhance the built environment.    

Partnering with NYCHA young adult students in the ARCHscholars program were four City Tech students in their fourth year of a new, five-year Bachelor of Architecture degree program at the downtown Brooklyn college. After working with the college students over the course of two months to create their project proposals, the NYCHA scholars saw the opportunity as a stepping stone toward pursuing a future career in architectural design, according to architect and instructor Naomi Langer-Voss. 

“This has materialized into something that has been a really enriching educational and networking experience for the participants,” said Tischelle George, Deputy Director of NYCHA’s Resident Engagement Department.  

At the conclusion of the program in May, the City Tech students presented at the college’s Emerging Scholars Program event, where they showcased poster designs featuring the ARCHscholars’ concepts to enhance the built environment at NYCHA. On June 12, the NYCHA scholars also had the opportunity to present their architectural renderings to residents at the Ingersoll Community Center, which were well-received by the audience.  

“It was a fruitful discussion and a great experience for our scholars,” said Delma Palma, Community Design Architect in NYCHA’s Design Department.  

City Tech architecture professor and program instructor Jason Montgomery said the student proposals were inspired by site visits to Ingersoll and Whitman Houses in Brooklyn, where the scholars made some observations about reconfiguring existing spaces.  

The greenhouses concept seeks to address issues such as food scarcity by calling for an urban gardening solution in which residents plant their own produce that could potentially be sold on site. For the site plan concept, the students proposed solutions such as improving connectivity to surrounding neighborhoods by creating marked pathways to clearly distinguish between vehicular and pedestrian traffic. A third project design suggested incorporating various renovations to the senior center at Whitman Houses.    

“It’s really a vision for understanding the basic needs in the community and figuring out how to address those needs and deficiencies within the architectural and urban scale,” Ms. Langer-Voss said of the scholars’ conceptual plans.    

Mr. Montgomery noted that in addition to the designs developed by the teams, the ARCHscholars collaboration allowed the City Tech students to serve as mentors for the field of architecture. The experience has also led some of the NYCHA students to pursue other opportunities related to the built environment, including a City Tech course on architecture that public high school students can take for college credit. 

ARCHscholars is currently seeking NYCHA residents who are interested in joining the program’s next cohort in the fall. For information on how to apply, email resident.programs@nycha.nyc.gov.