David Sundberg/Esto

Faith & Form's 2014 Religious Art & Architecture Award Rewards Diversity in Religious Design

January 04, 2015

Originally published by The Huffington Post as "These Religious Architecture Award Winners Evoke The Sacred In Unconventional Ways," this article reveals the winners in the 2014 Religious Art & Architecture Award run by Faith & Form, an organization dedicated to promoting the architecture of worship.

What makes a space sacred?

If the winners of Faith & Form's 2014 Religious Art & Architecture award are any indication, it may be something different every time. A high ceiling, curved walls, stained glass windows or lush landscaping -- no two winners are alike, and yet each offers viewers a fresh way of interacting with the divine.

Take a look at some of Faith & Form's 2014 award and honor award winners for religious architecture after the break

+ 14

The Other "Green Way": Why Can't New York Build More Quality Affordable Housing?

November 10, 2014

This article originally appeared on uncube magazine as "An Affordable Housing Complex in the Bronx Revisited."

Two years after the completion of Grimshaw and Dattner's acclaimed Via Verde ("Green Way"), no successors have even been proposed for this supposed model for the design and construction of new affordable housing. In this article, David Bench returns to the site, finding that the sustainable project's lack of impact is caused by a completely different type of "green."

Affordable housing is the quest of every New Yorker. The routes to finding it are mysterious and widely misunderstood, as they are made up of a myriad of buildings, programmes, and rules that have failed to keep pace with the production of luxury housing and gentrification of middle class neighbourhoods in the city. This apartment anxiety has led to such amusing and fateful reactions as the creation of the Rent is Too Damn High political party – whose name speaks for itself – and an economic narrative that propelled Bill de Blasio from a long-shot mayoral candidacy to an overwhelming majority on election day in 2013. Soon after taking office, de Blasio unveiled the most ambitious affordable housing program in generations, which aims to build or preserve 200,000 units in the next decade.