How can we address the housing crisis in a way that increases social equity? How can architecture and design help achieve these goals? Our panel of seasoned housing designers sets out to find answers.
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Oso Apartments Courtesy of Canopy Architecture + Design
Cities across the nation face a severe crisis in housing affordability. More than 40% of the U.S. population struggles with monthly housing costs. This situation has multiple complex causes that transcend design-based solutions, but architects are nevertheless key to the systemic change required in how we deliver quality housing, and to whom.
Housing the Nation: Social Equity, Architecture, and the Future of Affordable Housing (Rizzoli, 2024), edited by Alexander Gorlin and Victoria Newhouse, includes contributions from economists, community organizers, lawyers, planners and architects, all actively involved in addressing the housing crisis. Our conversation with innovative architectural practitioners and contributors to Housing the Nation, moderated by former Chicago housing commissioner Marisa Novara, will echo the essay collection in examining our present-day situation and the pragmatism needed to make inroads toward housing justice. The book will be on sale before and after the event at the CAC Design Store and online at shop.architecture.org.
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Paulett founded PTA in 1986 with the premise that excellence in design enhances the public realm and enriches the lives of a building’s users. She creates outstanding community-serving architecture that is equitable, sustainable, and enduring. She is committed to advancing social equity through architecture with mission driven work that brings good design to all, especially those who often have less access to it. Her thoughtful designs evolve out of a deep understanding of the Bay Area’s unique environment—of the region’s architecture, topography, and quality of light. Her buildings reinterpret, in contemporary language, the patterns of San Francisco: the rhythm of parcels, scale and proportion of openings, and episodic views into mid-block outdoor space. They capture and balance the changeable light of this fog-bound city. The result is an architecture that celebrates and enriches its surroundings, an architecture that is meant to be here.
Paulett was elevated to Fellowship of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 2007 and was this year awarded AIA California’s prestigious Maybeck Award, given for outstanding achievement in architectural design as expressed in a body of work over time.
Baker and Ryerson Fellow Jaime Torres Carmona is the Founder and Principal of Canopy / architecture + design, LLC, an award-winning architecture and urban design practice based in Chicago. Recognized for his approach and sensitivity towards the end user, social impact and the environment, Jaime explores the role of design as a vehicle for positive change. Through projects ranging in scale from community and health centers to housing, schools, mixed-use buildings, and urban design, Jaime is drawn towards the urban and civic realm and its impact on the human experience.
Canopy has produced some of Chicago’s most recognized neighborhood-based architecture, including the Enlace Community Center in Little Village, OSO Apartments in Albany Park, and the Encuentro Square Master Plan at the mouth of the 606 trail in Humboldt Park. The firm also expands their research through the publication series Between the Leaves, with Volume One, On Housing, providing a vivid perspective on the challenges and opportunities of affordable housing through the lens of Chicago.
Jaime’s work has been presented in a number of venues including the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the AIA Oregon Housing Design Conference, the Chicago Cultural Center, as well as the National AIA Conference in New York City. A distinguished graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he has taught at UIUC, Judson University, and other local universities where his studios have focused on cities, urbanism, people, and culture.
Alexander Gorlin is principal of Alexander Gorlin Architects, based in New York. He is a leader in the design of affordable housing and has received numerous awards including, most recently, the Best Downstate Residence of the Year award from the New York State Association for Affordable Housing. Gorlin is also a scholar and critic; he has taught at Yale, Cooper Union, and the University of Miami and is the author of five books. Mr. Gorlin’s criticism has appeared in the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications.
In 2005, the American Institute of Architects recognized Mr. Gorlin’s significant contribution to the profession by bestowing him with one of its highest honors, that of promotion to Fellowship.
Catherine Baker is the founder of Nowhere Collaborative, a woman-owned and rural place-based architecture practice formed in 2022 that addresses sustainability, incremental development, and community-based design. Her work is rooted in the intersection of the social and technical disciplines of architecture.
Catherine has over thirty years of experience in community-based design in Chicago and she is now focused on applying this experience to understanding people and problems, making connections, and formulating equitable solutions to the development, design of buildings and design of built-environments in a rural context. Catherine is an adjunct professor at IIT, regularly participates on design juries, and has been invited to speak at local and national conferences on housing and community-based design. She was a member of AIA’s delegation to the United Nation’s Habitat III in Quito, Ecuador, and she has presented on community-based design at the Danish Architecture Center in Copenhagen, Denmark.
As the Vice President of Community Impact for The Chicago Community Trust, Marisa Novara leads the team that oversees the development and implementation of the Trust’s strategic initiatives, its policy agenda, and grant making to reduce the racial and ethnic wealth gap in the Chicago region. She has more than 25 years of experience engaging with communities to create innovative programs that respond to their needs and drive policy change. Most recently, Novara served as Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Housing. She led the passage of nine bills in four years, conducted the country’s first Racial Equity Impact Assessment on the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program and in 2021 invested a record $1 billion in affordable housing.
Before joining the City, Novara was vice president of the Metropolitan Planning Council, where she designed and managed the Cost of Segregation project, which concluded how decades-old racial and economic segregation patterns cost the Chicago region an estimated $4.4 billion in additional income each year. She also led the subsequent creation of the region’s first comprehensive guide to a more racially equitable future. Before that, Novara directed affordable rental and for-sale housing development for Lawndale Christian Development Corp. in the North Lawndale community, where she lived and worked for more than a decade.
Novara has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan in sociology, master’s degree from the University of Chicago’s Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy and Practice, certificate in affordable housing finance, development, and management from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and master’s in urban planning from the Istituto Politecnico di Milano in Milan, Italy.
El Borinquen NYC. Photo by Michael Moran courtesy of Alexander Gorlin Architects
Encuentro Square. Courtesy of Canopy Architecture + Design
Six Plus concept design. Courtesy of Canopy Architecture + Design
Sister Lillian Murphy Community. Photo by Bruce Damonte, courtesy of PTA Architects
