Although many of the features of the exhibit intrigued me, I was drawn to one feature in particular; “El Barrio’s Artspace at PS109”. The building pictured had once been a public school built in 1898 but in 1995 was boarded up and abandoned. The abandoned building was then renovated and used as subsidized housing for artists and their families. I was captivated by this building because I love the idea of using already exhausting space for a new, more beneficial purpose, and, like I said in my previous post, maintaining and fixing existing space before building new structures. It maximizes space and stretches the budget for government funding for affordable housing. The government had repurposed this abandoned, boarded up building to help struggling artists and their families. Moreover, I really like how the exterior of the building remained remotely the same, still giving the look of a school building, maintaining its charm and history, while being used as lofts for families in need.
Amy, terrific that you picked up on the “adaptive reuse” of old buildings for housing, and especially housing that is dedicated to special groups–in this case, artists. I believe that a nonprofit artists’ group from Toronto was brought in to help organize this reuse project because they have experience creating housing for artists there. Do you think there would be enormous competition between different groups if some of them got “preferential” access to this kind of housing?
Professor Zukin