"EVERYONE should live in a dignified house," says architect Alexander Gorlin. The challenge, he explains, is that developers of affordable and supportive housing don't always emphasize design as a criterion. But Joan Beck, director of housing and development at New Destiny Housing, a New York nonprofit, was looking for more than just an adequate apartment block when she asked the Manhattan-based Gorlin to create a building in the South Bronx that would serve as a permanent address for survivors of domestic violence leaving the shelter system and other low-income families. She wanted him to imbue it with a sense of home. Completed last year, the brick-clad nine-story multifamily residence, punctuated by pastel-hued window grills inspired by Andy Warhol's Flowers, is an uplifting addition to a neighborhood once considered a poster child for urban blight. The mid-block property faces a tight three-way intersection at the apex of a street that President Jimmy Carter visited 43 years ago to view an area devastated by disinvestment, arson, and neglect- with subsequent tours by presidents Reagan and Clinton in the 1980s and '90s to survey its gradual reconstruction. Gorlin had been there too, in 1978, when, as a Yale graduate student, he explored ways to "suburbanize" the Bronx in a class taught by Robert A.M. Stern. Given this personal connection, the site's provenance resonated with him, and he wanted to give the building a strong identity and presence.
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