How can we address the housing crisis in a way that increases social equity? How can we use architecture and design to help achieve these goals? 

Cities across the nation, large and small, face a severe crisis in housing affordability. More than 40% of the U.S. population struggles with monthly housing costs, rental vacancy rates have hit multi-decade lows in many areas, and more than half a million Americans currently experience homelessness. This situation has multiple complex causes—among them, acute income inequality, racial discrimination and segregation, an absence of federal funding for public housing, zoning restrictions, and a lack of political will to implement change—and addressing these causes is an urgent necessity that requires efforts on multiple fronts.

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. This important collection of essays takes a pragmatic view of both the current situation and the changes needed to create housing justice in the United States.

On April 8, Open House New York and The Architectural League will host a conversation with contributors to Housing the Nation, moderated by Suzanne Stephens, former deputy editor of Architectural Record.

Michael Gecan, whose essay looks at the role of community organizations in funding the construction of starter homes; David Dante Troutt, who examines the racialized roots of housing inequality in Newark; Christopher Hawthorne, former chief design officer for the city of Los Angeles; and David Burney, former chief architect of NYCHA, will appear alongside Housing the Nation co-editors Alexander Gorlin and Victoria Newhouse. Architect Julie Eizenberg will present housing in Los Angeles designed by Koning Eizenberg Architecture. The event will be introduced by Architectural League executive director Jacob Moore.

AIA CES credit (1.5 LU | HSW) is available for attendees of this program. Copies of Housing the Nation will be available for purchase at the event.

About the Speakers: 

David Burney is the co-founder and director of the Urban Placemaking and Management program at the Pratt Institute School of Architecture. Burney was a member of the New York City Planning Commission from 2019 to 2022, commissioner of the New York City Department of Design and Construction from 2004 to 2014, and chief architect of the New York City Housing Authority from 1990 to 2004.

Julie Eizenberg is a founding principal of Koning Eizenberg Architecture, which has received dozens of awards for housing. Eizenberg studied architecture at the University of Melbourne and UCLA and was honored as a Design Leader by Architectural Record’s Women in Architecture Awards.

Michael Gecan is the former co-director and current senior advisor to the Industrial Areas Foundation. He is the author of the books Going Public: An Organizer’s Guide to Citizen Action and After America’s Midlife Crisis, as well as essays for the Boston Review, Village Voice, Nation, and other publications.

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.

Christopher Hawthorne is senior critic at the Yale School of Architecture and lecturer in English at Yale College. From 2018 to 2022, Hawthorne served as the first chief design officer for the City of Los Angeles. From 2004 to 2018, he was the architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times.

Victoria Newhouse is an architectural historian. Her books include Parks of the 21st Century: Reinvented Landscape, Reclaimed Territories; Towards a New Museum; and Chaos and Culture: Renzo Piano Building Workshop and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens.

Moderator Suzanne Stephens is a long-time writer, editor, and critic in the field of architecture. A former deputy editor of Architectural Record, she wrote her Ph.D. dissertation on architectural criticism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Stephens teaches a seminar on criticism in the architecture program of Barnard and Columbia Colleges.

David Dante Troutt is Distinguished Professor of Law and Justice John J. Francis Scholar at Rutgers Law School. He is the founding director of the Rutgers Center on Law, Inequality, and Metropolitan Equity. Troutt teaches and writes about the metropolitan dimensions of race, class and legal structure, intellectual property, torts, and critical legal theory.

Creating Affordable Housing: The Big Picture is part of Building Capital: The Value of Place, a multi-year series of programs presented by Open House New York, exploring how financial, cultural, and community capital combine to shape quality of place and quality of life across the five boroughs. Building Capital: The Value of Place is made possible with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and Bloomberg Philanthropies.