The Forest Hills Houses were the first cooperative public low-income housing in the city. Built in the 1970s under a cloud of controversy, the buildings were in need of repair and the site was under built. The master plan and architectural design elevates the existing development into a cohesive and vibrant mixed-use community of residential towers, community facility spaces, and green spaces.
The three-building development is located on underutilized areas. Its insertion into the existing fabric reinforces the site's community and organizational framework, while providing densification and community programming to match.
A collaboration of FXCollaborative and Curtis+Ginsberg, Apex Place provides new housing for mid-income households, including 442 affordable units, medical offices, expansion of existing community facilities, and a naturally ventilated parking structure screened by greenery. The development accentuates a design language of sheared volumes and reveals, with limestone-colored textured brick masonry and metal surfaces, and daylight in all residential corridors and building entrances. The development creates more pedestrian-scaled green spaces and reinforce prominence of the central green. The new structures are oriented for solar efficiency, while rooftop PV arrays on all new buildings provide an economic, sustainable, and attractive amenity for the development.
