Melrose Community Center
Bronx, N.Y.
Agrest and Gandelsonas Architects & Wank Adams Slavin Associates

Curved, Gleaming Forms Enrich a Landscape of Brick Public Housing

© David Sundbeg/ESTO

For more photos click on 'photos & drawings' above. To see the people and products behind this project click on 'people & products.'

By Suzanne Stephens

Visibility, identity, and accessibility—these closely associated attributes shaped the design of a community center serving a lackluster group of uniformly high-rise, high-density, brick housing projects in the South Bronx. Sitting on a promontory-like corner site of 1.78 acres surrounded by Melrose, Morrisania, and Jackson Houses, the striking new center is conceived to serve the entire neighborhood. An average daily number of about 250 children and teenagers now can be accommodated for a variety of sports, music, and dance activities, as well as arts and crafts, photography, and computer workshops.

The architects wrapped the gym’s steel-frame structure with standing-seam aluminum panels used for roofing, and concrete block. Inside, trusses are left exposed, and a mural is planned for the lower walls. Contrasting with the dynamically curved gym is the steel-frame and concrete block bar, dominated by a standard glass-and-aluminum curtain wall.

See the March 2001 issue of Architectural Record for full coverage of this project.

Formal name of building:
South Bronx Classic Community Center at Melrose Houses

Location:
Bronx, N.Y.

Gross square footage:
20,000 square feet

Total construction cost:
$6.5 million

Client:
New York City Housing Authority
www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/nycha/home.html

Wank Adams Slavin Associates
740 Broadway
New York, NY, 10003
212 420 1160 phone 212 529 9079 fax
www.go2wasa.com