1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 History and Background   Throughout its history New York City has faced some of the most challenging housing problems of any city in the world. In modern times the City has grown immeasurably, welcoming hundreds of thousands of newcomers each year. This rapid population growth has created unique issues in housing design and construction that the City has met with forward thinking, innovative designs, and strategic reform. At the turn of the 20th Century, as tenement issues of overcrowding and substandard design plagued the city, New York City's wealthiest were living in lavish mansions. Despite, or maybe because of this incongruity between worlds, both public housing for the poor and government subsidies for the middle class originated in New York. There are as many different housing designs as there are nationalities represented in New York. Our homes range from living in single-family dwellings to high rise apartment complexes; from garden apartments to suburban cottages and from rental units to condos and coops. Through this range of housing one thing has remained constant, New York's continued commitment to provide housing for all. The demand for affordable housing has continued to grow rapidly, in part caused by the cost of real estate growing faster than incomes. This trend demonstrates the extent to which current models of housing development and preservation are unable to meet the evolving needs of New York City residents. The competition sponsors recognize the current shortfalls in affordable housing production and believe that New Housing New York will provide substantive responses to New York's new needs. The New Housing, New York Design Ideas Competition is jointly sponsored by the Council of the City of New York, The New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, and the City University of New York.. The competition will bring together people from diverse backgrounds and interests with the common goal of designing livable, sustainable, and affordable communities through housing. The competition will provide a forum for discovering new possibilities for developing affordable housing in NYC and address statutory limitations, including current zoning and building code regulations. 1.2 Design Challenge   The goal of the "New Housing New York" competition is to expand existing concepts for high quality affordable housing in New York City. The competition is held on three sites throughout the city that represent prototypical contexts for future affordable housing development: in East Harlem, an infill in a row of brownstone houses; in Brooklyn, the development of a blockfront facing the 4th Avenue corridor; and, in Queens, an entire block in an underutilized manufacturing zone to be rezoned for low and/or mid-rise construction" Competitors are invited to design one, two or all three of the typical sites presented in the NHNY competition program, and to propose residential buildings and neighborhoods that illustrate innovative approaches to affordable housing. In all of the three contexts the challenge will be to design excellent housing that contributes to the building of the neighborhood. The competition seeks to explore new forms of urban living, and encourages entrants to design units for different populations such as senior citizens, single parents, people with disabilities, telecommuters, etc.. Entrants are also encouraged to integrate other functions into designs, including retail space or office space where appropriate. Sustainable design is an important consideration for this process. The use of high performance environmentally appropriate construction materials and processes can contribute to improve energy efficiency and ecological friendliness in the construction phase, the life span of the building, and the recycling/deconstruction phase of the building. 1.3 Criteria for Judging   The Jury will form its decision primarily based on the overall quality and coherence of the competition entries. The following framework will help the jury in its deliberations, while the jury retains the authority to change the weighting of individual items: Level of innovation the design displays : Since the main purpose of the competition is to gather new innovative ideas and concepts that help tackle the housing situation New York City faces participants are strongly encouraged to think creatively and are encouraged to think in new ways about affordable urban living, communal spaces and the relation of public and private spheres in affordable housing. Sustainability: Designing housing in the context of a City that is changing as rapidly and constantly as New York calls for innovative solutions. Proposals not only have to reflect the needs of the current situation, but also should be adaptable to future changing needs. The ecologic performance of the design will also be evaluated in this category. Transferability of the proposal: The competition sites as chosen are placeholders and not real development sites. Transferability implies the degree to which a proposal offers a conceptual solution to the design task rather than a specific realizable solution for the particular site. This does not mean however that the contexts of the sites, which represent prototypes in NYC, can be generously ignored. Viability/economic efficiency of the proposal: Even though the competition neither requires the contestant to develop a detailed design nor a budget for the proposal, the architectural and economic viability of the design proposition will be considered. When the proposed design requires a construction that ordinarily could be very costly, for example, an explanation or economic solution for the situation should be included.