On February 26th, 2020 Frederick Biehle was invited by the University of Dundee student lecture series to present. He spoke about three interrelated affordable housing issues: 1) an examination as to how public housing in NYC came to be characterized by the “tower in the park” paradigm, 2) whether its alternative- the first project constructed by the NYCHA designed by Frederick Ackerman might still be viable today and 3) his design studio work that proposes “completing” the NYCHA superblocks to reintegrate them with the surrounding city.
Research Practice & Activism About Racial Justice
On November 11th, Frederick Biehle presented his Studio based research into the Reinventing the NYCHA superblock as part of the first Pratt School of Architecture Racial Justice Flashtalks series
Melbourne Affordable Housing Challenge
On December 8th, 2020 viaARCHITECTURE participated in the Melbourne Affordable Housing Challenge hosted by Beebreeders.
The 1960s saw both a rejection of the monumental vision for public housing and a dissolution of the political responsibility to continue creating it. Aldo Rossi’s critique was at the center of the European rejection. Architecture of the City was a protest against the aesthetic functionalism that had been embraced by the public housing industry. Rossi rejected the architectural avant-garde’s attempt to turn the ordinary into an agent of revolution. He declared that
“(…) housing must be ordinary, something that recedes into the fabric of the city, and not something that stands forward from it; that residential buildings are fabric, not monuments, and only by continuing to be fabric can they make a positive contribution to the city as a collective work.”
The Victoria State Government established its Housing Commission in 1938. In spite of the failure of tower-in-the-park modernism in both America and Europe and the success of its own prefabrication plants, it would choose to abandon its lower rise, higher density track record for Melbourne. Between 1964 and 1970 twenty-eight sites across nineteen suburbs in inner Melbourne would be cleared and developed with forty-seven 20-30 story high rise housing blocks situated in unadorned natural landscapes.
This proposal seeks to provide new affordable housing by re-urbanizing Melbourne’s public housing sites- introducing a new low-rise infill to both engage the surrounding streets, integrate certain commercial and retail adjacencies, offer 2nd floor amenities and services for the larger constituency and better define its landscapes, the now intra-block gardens, to better allow for recreational leisure.
Celebrating Erika Hinrichs' Tenure
On May 6th, 2021 In honor of Erika Hinrichs stepping down after 10 1⁄2 years as Chairperson of the Pratt Institute’s Undergraduate Architecture Department, a gathering of her fellow administrators, faculty and students (current and former) took place. Twenty-seven speakers offered their recollections and experience working with and under her leadership.
Cities in Evolution
On April 29, 2021 Frederick Biehle was invited to present his paper The Actual and Its Double at the 8th Annual International Symposium of the Architecture, Archaeology, and Contemporary City Planning (AACCP) at Ozyegin University, Istanbul Turkey.
Architecture & Culture
Architecture and Collective Life Vol 8_issue 3+4
Frederick Biehle’s article, Fast Forward into the Past: Frederick Ackerman’s Radical Banality and the Affordable Housing Future That Could Have Been was included in the Routledge Press publication and is now available online
Housing and the City
On November 21st, 2020 Frederick Biehle was invited to present his paper Reinventing Public Housing: Design Strategies for Completing What Modernism Left Unfinished at the 17th Annual International Conference of the Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA) at the University of Nottingham, England.
ACSA 2020 Here + Now: A House for the 21st Century
On September 4th, 2020 HERE+NOW: A House for the 21st Century: 2020 Student Design Competition awarded 1st Prize to Joseph Leaming, sponsored by Frederick Biehle.
San Francisco Affordable Housing Competition
On July 2nd, 2020 viaARCHITECTURE participated in the San Francisco Affordable Housing Competition hosted by Beebreeders.
While it is perhaps appropriate to put forth the challenge of an ideas competition dedicated to AFFORDABLE HOUSING for the purpose of keeping the subject of affordable housing before the public eye. we propose that AFFORDABLE HOUSING IS NO LONGER A DESIGN ISSUE. Affordable housing is a political issue. Modern housing prototypes have been produced for over one hundred years. We merely need to select one of these prototypes and build it. What needs to be designed is public policy, choosing how a community will prioritize its resources. Housing, along with access to affordable health care and quality education should be available to every citizen as of right. The absence of affordable housing is not the result of a reciprocal absence of advocacy, of economics, or design, but simply the lack of political will. The methods are available. The means and the incentives to achieve it are not.
Rome Program Honors Review
On May 7th, 2020 Frederick Biehle hosted the Rome Program Honors Review via the Pratt Institute ZOOM platform from New York.
Click here to watch Rome Program Honors Review Live recording
