Is there a substitute for the greige five-story house blocks which might be coming to dominate neighborhoods throughout Dallas and nearly each different main metropolis in america? A pair of latest books counsel that the reply is sure.
Housing the Nation: Social Fairness, Structure, and the Way forward for Inexpensive Housing, edited by architect Alexander Gorlin and historian Victoria Newhouse (Rizzoli, $35), presents aesthetically and economically revolutionary tasks by greater than a dozen corporations along with a sequence of essays that body the historical past and challenges of the housing disaster.
The identical themes are coated in The State of Housing Design (Harvard Joint Heart for Housing Research, $30), a primer edited by Samuel Naylor, Dan D’Oca and Chris Herbert. Along with a portfolio of revolutionary tasks, the quantity addresses ideas together with disguised or “light” density — that’s, constructing extra housing that respects neighborhood context — and communal growth that collectively can redirect present design follow.
Will the 2 books remedy our housing issues? In all probability not. However in providing options, they counsel that we will do higher, and present us how.
