RKD makes it big with its design for a slice of New York City

Award-winning architectural firm says design solutions can help remedy the housing crisis

A rendering of RKD's residential courtyard design for the Sunnyside development

A rendering of RKD's residential courtyard design for the Sunnyside development

Sodexo's Margot Slattery

A rendering of RKD's residential courtyard design for the Sunnyside development

Samantha McCaughren Twitter Email

April 25 2021 02:30 AM

Irish firm RKD Architects has just won a prestigious New York City urban design ideas competition for its proposal for a sustainable neighbourhood of 3,800 affordable homes on a deck over a major railway yard at Sunnyside in Queens.

The ambitious plan – which for now will remain a concept rather than an actual work in progress – is based on concepts that RKD’s Harry Browne said could be used at brownfield urban sites in Irish cities, for example at CIE’s East Wall yards as well as in industrial areas inside the M50 ring.

This type of design – based on a ‘15-minute city’ concept, where residents can walk or cycle to anything they need – is what it will take to solve the housing crisis, said Browne, who was part of the team that created the design.

“To solve the housing crisis we need to build between 37,000 and 50,000 units a year – and we’re currently building 20,000.

"We really do need some big thinking. We can’t just continue to build suburbs out into the fields.”

RKD, of course, is not going to sit waiting for Ireland to catch up and start building houses. It plans using its New York win as a springboard for US expansion, he said.

Sodexo's Margot Slattery

Slattery takes diversity role to pastures new

Global diversity and inclusion officer at Sodexo Margot Slattery is moving on from the facilities management company where she has worked since the 1990s.

Prior to taking the international role, she was country president for Sodexo in Ireland from 2015 to 2019.

Slattery will join ISS World Services (ISS), another facilities management company, in a global diversity role from the beginning of May.

“This is a tremendous time of change in the world when companies greatly influence our shared future,” Slattery said.

“I am delighted to help shape that future with ISS as a leader of positive change. I look forward to building from ISS core values towards a more diverse, inclusive and equal world.”