Rising from the intersection of Woodhaven Boulevard and 68th Road, the gentle spiral of the Woodhaven will serve as a generous new landmark in the urban fabric of Rego Park, Queens. This project, which is currently in design, will replace a former autobody repair shop with 120 units of affordable housing and transform the relationship between busy, car-centric Woodhaven Boulevard and the neighborhood's quieter side streets. The building's volumes form a spiral that rises from its most prominent corner to meet the adjacent 6-story building on 68th Road at its highest point to negotiate the varied typologies of its neighbors and its L-shaped site. This stepped massing creates an ecosystem of green roofs that is visible from the street and a formal rhythm that is reinforced through the regular grid of its brickwork, which features a textured inset that recalls traditional masonry and brick architecture seen in Rego Park. Along 68th Road, this classic brick facade lifts away from the sidewalk to articulate two use-specific entries, an architectural gesture that further evolves at the main entrance, where the ground floor's footprint shifts inward to create a covered 'front porch' directly next to an MTA bus stop. Structural columns touch down from above, mediating the transition from exterior to interior. This project is currently under construction.

The Woodhaven

535 East 12th Street, a new residential building in the East Village, has been completed, bringing eleven income-restricted units to the neighborhood. This building is one half of a larger project designed to expand affordable home ownership. Two condemned structures that had been City-owned since the 1970s – one at this site and another around the corner on Avenue A – were demolished, making way for two new buildings that meet current as-of-right zoning and introduce a total of 21 units between the two sites, ten of which will be owned by the tenants of the original buildings. SGS played a key role in working with the residents to create apartments that will meet their needs for years to come. These mid-block structures were designed using contemporary expressions of the neighborhood’s historic architectural vernacular. The six-story, eleven-unit East 12th Street building features a mixture of corbeling and brick bond patterns on its terracotta-colored facade, referencing traditional masonry patterns and details. It also honors the neighborhood’s tradition of community gardens, with large windows opening to green spaces next to and across the street from the building. Both buildings will be completed and occupied in 2024.

East Village

Mary Star of the Sea will constitute 121 units of affordable and supportive senior housing on a uniquely shaped lot in Gowanus, Brooklyn, owned by the Catholic Charities Progress of Peoples Development Corporation (CCPOP). Our design features a central courtyard that will anchor the building and be shared with the client's existing senior housing facility, which neighbors the site. The project's dynamic massing and street wall articulation breaks down its volumes to meet the scale of the surrounding urban fabric, and the lobby's layout will provide welcoming views into the courtyard. Our design responds to the site's vulnerability to climate change and rising sea levels and will be Certified Passive House. Mary Star of the Sea is currently in design.

Mary Star of the Sea Senior Housing

Located on a dramatically-sloped site in the Highbridge section of the Bronx, the Fischer Senior Apartments proposes 105 new units of affordable housing for seniors and a health clinic to a difficult to develop city-owned site that was once envisioned to be a park, but which was left unused for many decades. The building’s unique form is a reaction to both a large rock-outcropping on the site, as well as a means for increasing the unit count and natural light throughout. Sixteen studios located at the top two floors are designed with communal living space and supportive staff to create a new “enhanced care” model for aging in place. The building’s vibrant colors, connection to the outdoors, generous common spaces, and strong sustainability design create a welcoming environment for both tenants and the surrounding community. Fischer Senior Apartments is under construction.

Fischer Senior Apartments

Working with Dantes Partners and SMJ Development in response to an HPD RFP, SGS proposed two new buildings on city-owned parking lots in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Our schematic-level designs envision two nine-story buildings. The Grand Dean would provide 112 apartments for seniors in a light-tan brick building with a dynamic glazed corner that makes vibrant artwork on its interior visible from the adjacent playground, while the Weston would create 93 family apartments within a red brick shell that features a dramatic copper-colored setback on Bergen Street. The durable facade systems on both structures express the permanence and timelessness of both structures in response to their shared urban context.

Dean & Bergen NYC HPD Proposal

SGS completed the design and planning of a new mixed-income multi-family building on Fulton Street, an eclectic and busy street in Brooklyn’s Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood. This new as-of-right development provides 103 much-needed apartments on a 15,000 sf site directly adjacent to a subway line. The robust eleven-story building, clad in textured gray and black masonry with bright red glazed-brick accents, neighbors an open parking lot, which allows the mid-block site to integrate features unique to a corner lot such as increased light and air along lot-line windows. The design makes space for a generous roof terrace on the second floor that is available for use by all tenants. The project involved multiple agency approvals, including a ULURP application, and the building integrates sustainable design practices following the Enterprise Green Communities criteria.

The Garnet

SGS renovated two buildings for West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing (WSFSSH) that were in extreme disrepair, complementing the buildings’ historic features with modern elements. The renovation included updating all mechanical systems and spaces to ADA and life-safety standards and the creation of an extensive-type green roof.

Brownsville Affordable Housing Proposal

This site combines three small zoning lots resulting in a modest 16,500 sf to support 200 affordable units. Set in an under-utilized parking lot, this new building serves to reinvigorate the original campus and provide much-needed amenities including a commercial tenant and services provided by community facility partners.

West Bronx Housing and Community Facility

SGS was invited by a developer to design a new affordable housing building located over a ground-level public library branch in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. This 50-unit building will provide much–needed housing and updates to an important neighborhood institution, bringing the existing library into the 21st century with the latest technology and spaces for the community to gather.

Affordable Housing in Sunset Park

The Our Lady of Pity site consists of two new buildings that will replace a defunct former church in the Melrose section of the Bronx on a lot that spans the full width of the city block. The design will provide over 200 new affordable housing units for families, and their combined through-lot conditions create a large light-filled courtyard between the buildings that will include landscape features for children and adults, to be shared by all residents. This project is currently in design.

Our Lady of Pity Affordable Housing

In collaboration with SMJ Development and Dantes Partners, SGS prepared a design concept for a new building located on the east side of Malcolm X Boulevard between Quincy Street and Gates Avenue. The Stuyvesant Overlook would fill a vacant portion of the existing Stuyvesant Gardens I housing campus. Its stepped brick facade takes the foreground, seamlessly integrating with the neighboring three- to four-story residential buildings at street level, while its central geometric volume blends into the sky with cool-toned metal cladding. At nine stories, this new structure would provide 157 apartments for low-income seniors through a combination of studios and one-bedroom units and also features generous outdoor spaces on its dynamic roofline. Our design includes a generous retail space at the corner of Malcolm X and Gates to welcome in the broader Bedford-Stuyvesant community.

Stuyvesant Overlook NYCHA PACT Proposal

SGS partnered with SMJ Development, an MBE developer, in a joint venture for a new building on an underutilized 13,000 sf site in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn in response to an RFP for a client with a strong health and wellness mission. The resulting design introduces 64 new affordable housing units for seniors, a 10,000 sf aquatic center, and community facility spaces for OBHS, a health care center, and Exalt Youth, a non-profit working on education and juvenile justice. The building’s design expresses its modular construction and celebrates the building’s various programs using bold colors to create a clearly defined wayfinding to the various program elements throughout.

Brooklyn Housing and Aquatics Center

SGS was invited to propose an affordable senior housing development located on the existing campus in the Bronx. Our proposed 160,000 sf building offers 194 units of new independent senior housing, a health center, pharmacy, meeting spaces for residents and community members and office space for a neighborhood nonprofit. A landscaped plaza and gardens provide connections between buildings and the neighborhood, and sustainability features encourage water and consumer waste recycling throughout the building. The development works with the site’s existing conditions to create a building that is both functional and cost-effective, while creating an uplifting and welcoming presence for its residents and neighbors.

Bronx Affordable Housing Project

The West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing (WSFSSH) selected SGS in 2010 to renovate Borinquen Court, a 145-unit building that was originally constructed in 1981. Our tenant-in-place rehabilitation of the seven-story building, completed in 2014, revitalized the aging structure, inside and out, along with its connection to its urban context. SGS worked closely with both WSFSSH and the residents to understand both the site’s existing conditions and its tremendous potential. Our work not only upgraded and repaired the major building systems and apartment interiors, ensuring the health and safety of its occupants and improving energy efficiency, but also reimagined all common spaces to create inviting, dynamic areas for the tight-knit community to gather. The renovation also animated Borinquen Court’s facade with geometric, cost-efficient interventions at the window surrounds and entryway canopy. Garden spaces surrounding the building were also reworked and a full brownfield remediation was done on the site.

Borinquen Court Renovation

Supportive Housing for WSFSSH

Tres Puentes is an affordable senior housing development consisting of two new buildings built to complement and add over 170 new units to the existing 

 building. The three buildings are physically connected and form a unified campus run by a non-profit housing organization. The project consists of two new buildings: the West Building is 11-stories tall and the East Building is eight stories. All apartments are either one-bedrooms or studios, and house low income seniors. In addition to the apartments, the new buildings include a senior center, health clinic, local pharmacy, and new social services offices.

SARA National Design Merit Award Winner, 2022

Tres Puentes

In the News

SGS projects in Built by New York at the Center for Architecture →

Tres Puentes, prototype for the new Housing+ Initiative →

Tres Puentes wins SARA Award →

Tres Puentes on World Architects →

Tres Puentes Senior Apartments opens its doors in Mott Haven →

More Multi-Family