At Van Alen Institute, we believe design can transform cities, landscapes, and regions to improve people’s lives. We collaborate with communities, scholars, policymakers, and professionals on local and global initiatives that rigorously investigate the most pressing social, cultural, and ecological challenges of tomorrow. Building on more than a century of experience, we develop cross disciplinary research, provocative public programs and inventive design competitions.
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A Conversation with
Dr. Andrea Mechelli
“We wanted to tell stories about how important this housing has been to New York City by revisiting these projects and looking at them as real, living human communities.”
“The city is my natural habitat,” she declares as a subway train roars along the J/M tracks just outside her South Williamsburg studio, populated with colorful pieces of art, rolls of vinyl, cutting tools, and computers.
We were not a community anymore — we were people living on top of people, brushing past each other, rushing nowhere fast.
These zones remind us that cities really are ours for the making.