Another new building is unveiled on Houston Street with a familiar value engineered aesthetic that has graced neighborhoods across the city for half a century. I was informed that the brick facade was indeed pre-fab panelling, which is sterile in comparison to traditional masonry work but saves on construction costs. The textile block was used in the same manner, by Frank Lloyd Wright on the Ennis House, but with much more elegant results - Wright didn’t value-engineer himself into a corner. 

This reminded me to order a copy of The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander in an effort to make sure our platform does justice to it’s content. The book proposes a theory of design that doesn’t fight with it’s environment. In my case, the neighborhood - the ‘artistic community’ - doesn’t need another example of luxury branded public housing.