Pennswood Apartments on New York Contest Winner

 

 

A contest to discover a new way to build affordable and efficient housing in New York City has come to a close. Pennswood Apartments discusses the winning design and how it will lead housing innovation in the future.

 

The winner of New York City’s adAPT contest has been announced, and the winner is My Micro NY. It is a multipurpose, 55-unit apartment system that uses less than 300 square feet in more ways than imaginable.

 

The idea started as a way to alleviate some of the housing issues in New York City. The contest commissioned architects, builders, and real estate developers to work on a design for a 250 to 300 square foot micro apartment. The winner; a collaboration between Monadnock Construction, nARCHITECTS, and Actors Fund Housing Development Corporation, created an apartment that would make the most of the small space it had. Pennswood Apartments says that the units would have folding furniture, a small kitchen, and other modular structures that would move and adjust to the tenant’s needs.

 

Once the apartments gain approval, the building will be constructed on a piece of city-owned land on the east side of Manhattan. The apartments will be stacked on top of each other, and then a brick façade will be built around the stack of apartments. The modular design has been compared to similar designs being deployed in cities on the West Coast where they are facing a similar housing issue.

 

Pennswood Apartments knows that the cost of housing in New York City is expensive. Living in Manhattan is even more expensive, even for the smallest of spaces. This is why the city is taking steps to get smaller and affordable housing onto the island without sacrificing quality or expense. San Francisco, California has faced similar issues with housing expense and availability. Officials are seeing this new concept of micro apartments as a new wave in living, with designers working to make the most of what little space is provided. The apartments being built in New York will offer floor-to-ceiling storage and loft space on top of the interchangeability of the rest of the apartment.

 

Construction will begin around 2015 pending approval from city zoning.

 

Pennswood Apartments is a clean, peaceful, and safe apartment complex in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. They look forward to seeing how micro apartments take off in New York City, and how they would work in other cities and communities.