OCV Architects

OCV Architects is making a better New York through the use of green architecture techniques at “Jacob’s Place,” a 63-unit affordable-housing construction project being built on Webster Avenue. Green architecture has become a fashionable buzzword in New York City housing, but OCV has made it a reality with beautiful, practical, eco-friendly buildings while maintaining their long-established style of community-inspired architecture. The finished work will include lush green roofs, highly durable bamboo floors and energy-efficient appliances.

Architect Jack Coogan, founding partner of OCV Architects, gave a tour of the sites, which include:

• Jacob’s Place, a 63 unit affordable housing development and daycare center.
• 2241 Webster Avenue, a rehabilitated tenement with green features
• A community computer training center
• A community playground.

On the tour were Elliot Spitzer, NY Attorney General, and Edward Norton, actor, activist and stakeholder in the Enterprise Foundation that is one of the sponsors of the multi-site project.

 

Mr. Spitzer and Mr. Norton champion the revitalization of blighted neighborhoods to reclaim vacant lots and rebuild condemned structures into affordable housing, youth recreation and community preservation missions. This recent initiative is part of NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg's New Housing Marketplace plan to bring 165,000 units of affordable housing to New Yorkers within the next five years.

Green architecture has become a fashionable buzzword in NYC housing, but OCV has made it a reality with beautiful, practical, eco-friendly buildings while maintaining their long-established style of community inspired architecture. The finished work will include lush green roofs, highly durable bamboo floors and energy-efficient appliances.

While the designs are clean and green, they also pay respect to the history, architecture and culture of the surroundings. The goal for Jacob’s Place — to revive the glorious art-deco period of the North West Bronx, as well as pay homage to local leaders like the late Astin Jacobo.

According to Pat Logan of the Fordham Bedford Housing Corporation, on working with OCV’s Jack Coogan, “Jack does good work. He has a good sense of design, and you can count on him to be hands-on and on-site... an architect who’s got the whole package.”

Jack Coogan, a New York City R.A. for over 30 years, says that OCV “likes to work within the existing fabric of the city to make a better New York through architecture.”

The positive impact the architecture firm has had on the city dates back to the early 80’s with the early Urban Homesteaders rehabilitation of the Lower East Side to completion of over 100 buildings in Bushwick, a former Brooklyn fringe neighborhood.


For more information:
Anne Ginsberg
212-675-6470
http://ocvarch.com/

 

Posted on August 23, 2006 01:52 PM|Permalink

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