ARCHITECTURE REVIEW: NYT
In a Bronx Complex, Doing Good Mixes With Looking Good
By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN
Published: September 26, 2011
"Via Verde helps shift the conversation. Like all good architecture, it is handsome. Unlike too much, it goes out of its way to be healthy. It evolved out of a competition five years ago, organized by Shaun Donovan, then commissioner of the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, now President Obama’s secretary of housing and urban development. The idea was to spur developers to team with architects in combining the latest green concepts with high-quality architecture for a public-housing project, a “beacon,” as Mr. Donovan put it to me the other day, that would “re-engage design with the issue of affordable housing.”