Our studio had the opportunity to visit the Freeform + Deform office, a creative collective that engages in a broad spectrum of architecture, design and visual media. The office was jointly founded in 2008 by Cornell AAP Alumni Anaelechi Owunwanne (B.Arch ’99) as well as Olalekan Jeyifous (B.Arch ’00) a Nigerian-born, Brooklyn-based artist and designer. At the office, we were able to speak to both Anaelechi and Olalekan on the projects that they have been working on and the challenges that they face while working with the city, the developers and various stakeholders. They spoke to us about four projects they were working on or had worked on. These included; Livonia Ave Gallery, Broxchester, Prospect Plaza and Caton Flats.
They talked about how zoning analyses are incorporated in projects alongside the agendas and principles given by city agencies and housing authorities. For instance, for the Caton Flats to work with the zoning requirements and to tie into the existing neighborhood, they broke up the façade into smaller parts. Moreover, to incorporate the existing vendors who would be temporarily displaced they moved the vendors to another location and conducted a lot of workshops with them to meet their needs and provide them with soft skills in business development. The key part of the process was to build trust with the community.
The biggest problems with public housing are balancing the needs of the developers with those of the city and creating a strategy for people to live and work and keep the city moving. Who has the power? What is true affordable housing? How can we make housing inclusive for all? As we move forward in the semester these are the questions that we hope to address.