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COPYRIGHT 2006 Hanley-Wood, Inc.
project of the year (tie)
martin luther king jr. plaza, philadelphia
torti gallas and partners
silver spring, md.
Tom Gallas remembers the first meeting he had with the residents of Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza, a set of high-rise public housing towers in South Philadelphia. It was 1995, and his firm, Torti Gallas and Partners, had just won the commission to revitalize the project under HUD's HOPE VI program. "I've got to tell you, this was not easy for the residents to get behind in the beginning," he says. "It wasn't a wonderful meeting--there was no trust." The best way to earn their confidence and start improving their community, he reasoned, would be to get to know them better. So the firm hired 20 residents to go door to door throughout the towers with a detailed questionnaire. The survey asked people what they liked and disliked about their current living situations as well as what design features their new homes would ideally contain.
The answers to those questions helped form the basis for a comprehensive re-imagining of the towers and the surrounding neighborhood--an effort that...
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