Back in April, we told you how a city competition had produced attractive, ecohealthy, and affordable housing in the South Bronx. When architect Markus Dochantschi, Zaha Hadid's onetime U.S. point man, finished second in that competition, he vowed to find another spot for his utopian plans. His sights were set on the ritzy city-owned site next to BAM, where another similar competition was running. This time, he won. Dochantschi, working with German architect Stefan Behnisch, will design 187 units, including 30 for-sale apartments and an unspecified number of affordable ones, above a retail and performance space where Fulton Street meets Ashland (near Frank Gehry's modern explosion over the Atlantic Yards). He says the scheme scatters for-sale and low-income units throughout the tower to ensure that no one section becomes less desirable than others. Instead, as the above rendering shows (and another more clearly after the jump), he "twisted the orientation" to make sure the north-south exposure was no less enticing than the east-west. As a result, he says, "hotspots" throughout the building will ensure plenty of nice light and air. He hopes the building opens by 2010. —Alec Appelbaum

Local Planner Gets the Big Job [Brooklyn Papers]
Related: Mr. Ratner's Neighborhood [NYM]