Casa Celina was the winning proposal for a city RFP to develop senior housing at the Sotomayor Houses in the Bronx. The Soundview neighborhood public housing authority site is named for US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and the new building which now occupies an underutilized parking lot on the campus is named for the Justice’s mother, Celina Baez. The 16-story building offers 204 affordable senior units and a range of amenities including a fitness room with an adjacent landscaped rooftop terrace, lounge areas on every floor, and laundry and community rooms on the ground floor.
Approximately 1,700 square feet of community space will be accessible to NYCHA residents and the surrounding community. Operated by the nonprofit development partner, the neighborhood-facing space houses an array of programming including licensed mental health services, care management, and case assistance for eligible community members.
Incorporating active design principles, the stairs are given prominent placement in high traffic areas and have large windows for daylight and views. As an additional enticement to walk up and down, the lounges (programmed differently on alternating floors) are located next to the building’s main circulation spine, creating a vertical network of social spaces. The variety of communal areas gives residents places to connect, which will help to promote socialization and prevent isolation – a frequent challenge for seniors.
The north/south orientation of the site and building provides an opportunity for energy generation through a large solar array. The angled recesses of the windows and articulation of the massing aims to shade the east/west facing units and mitigate heat gain. This massing also catches light differently throughout the day, with windows reflecting blues, grays, purples and teals and various planes holding shadows at different lengths and shapes as the sun moves across the sky. While the prefabricated brick facade panel system maintains the contextual aesthetic of masonry, the bold color shift to white and dynamism of the exterior highlights the forward-looking urban infill ideas of this all-electric development.
Overall, the design is an evolution of the public housing typology, one that creates a much stronger relationship to the neighborhood, particularly through the ground floor plan. Large swaths of glazing provide views of a side garden and playground; and ensure visual connections to other parts of the community. Filling in the empty northeast corner of the public housing campus, the new building now engages with two different streets, adding plantings to one and a colonnade to the other. Locating community spaces along three sides at grade further enhances street life. Those spaces, covered in storefront windows also help light the sidewalk in the evening, enhancing safety and welcoming people home.