After 40 years of building libraries, museums and government buildings around the world, Moshe Safdie may still be best known for Habitat 67, his experimental “town” of stacked housing units in Montreal. Now Safdie is building a much larger version of Habitat in Qinhuangdao in Hebei Province. The ambitious project is expected to open in 2014. The developer, Kerry Properties, is “already driving piles while we complete the design,” the architect reports.
The project grew out of preparation for a museum show — a retrospective of Safdie’s career that opened last year at the National Gallery of Canada.Donald Albrecht, the curator of the show, suggested that it end with an examination of Habitat. So Safdie asked participants in a fellowship program in his Boston office to take a fresh look at the 40-year-old project. Their brief: How has Habitat lived up to its promise? How might it be made more affordable, more sustainable, or made more adaptable to current urban conditions, including increased density?
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