Four Architects' Renderings of the Empty Plot at Varick and Canal Streets

Blue Sky on Canal Street

The Subsidized Solution
FLANK

Flank, known for its inventive façades (like the copper cladding at 385 West 12th Street), came up with a concept that inventively addresses the acute shortage of apartments for middle-income Manhattanites. “Affordable housing, the way it’s being created now, isn’t bringing housing downtown, not anywhere close to where people work,” says Mick Walsdorf, one of FLAnk’s principals. The private-sector, free-market solution integrates a corporate logo into the building’s shell, creating a permanent billboard at a major artery; ad revenue subsidizes the apartments. For this exercise, the firm picked Target—a clever choice, given that the company’s known for unexpectedly chic design at extremely basic prices.