MY MICRO NY | nARCHITECTS

nARCHITECTS' design for My Micro NY, in collaboration with Monadnock Development and the Actors Fund Housing Development Corporation, is the winning proposal in the adAPT NYC competition sponsored by the NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD). Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and HPD Commissioner Mathew M. Wambua announced at a press conference in January 2013 that the My Micro NY development team has been chosen through a competitive Request for Proposals, which received the largest response to date for an HPD housing project.

"The remarkable number of high-quality responses to the adAPT NYC RFP validates the position that developing micro-unit living is both financially and physically feasible in the New York City landscape," said Commissioner Wambua. "Monadnock, nARCHITECTS, and the Actors Fund HDC came through with an inventive and striking interpretation of the micro-unit concept."

My Micro NY will be New York City's first micro-unit apartment building on a City-owned site and the first multi-unit Manhattan building developed using modular construction. The project focuses on quality and livability through features that highlight the use of space, light, and air, such as 9'-10" floor-to-ceiling heights and juliet balconies. By incorporating setbacks as a governing design logic, My Micro NY could in principle be adapted to many sites, at a range of heights and floor area ratios, and at nearly any location in a block. The 55 micro-units, ranging from 250 to 370 square feet, achieve affordability for low- and middle-income households without any direct City subsidy or financing, in part through its use of modular design to significantly shorten project schedule.

The adAPT NYC competition was created as part of Mayor Bloomberg's New Housing Marketplace Plan to introduce additional choices within New York City's housing market to accommodate the city's growing population of one- and two-person households. The City's housing codes have not kept up with its changing population, and currently do not allow an entire building of micro-units.

Mayor Bloomberg will waive certain zoning regulations at the Kips Bay site to allow the My Micro NY pilot project to be developed.

Credits: Eric Bunge, Mimi Hoang (Principals); COMPETITION PHASE: Ammr Vandal (Associate, Project Architect), Daniel-Katebini Stengel, Christopher Grabow, Alex Tseng, Nancy Putnam (Design Team); PROJECT PHASE: Ammr Vandal (Associate, Project Architect), Tony-Saba Shiber, Daniel Katebini