Designed by Vishaan Chakrabarti’s firm PAU, the Refinery at Domino in Brooklyn reflects the architect’s desire to create spaces that attract socioeconomically diverse crowds.
Photographer: Max Touhey/PAU
To Build a Happier City, Design for Density
In his new book, architect Vishaan Chakrabarti makes a case for building bigger to create more social cohesion and joyful communities.
Ten years ago, the New York City-based architect Vishaan Chakrabarti made a pitch for transit-oriented density in a car-soaked nation. His book A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America, extolled the benefits of “hyperdensity” — urban agglomerations with populations big enough to support mass transit, as embodied by high-rise-filled Asian cities like Tokyo and Singapore. Only by enacting policies that encouraged building up rather than sprawling out could cities conquer the inequality and housing crises that were roiling urban America.
“It wasn’t a unique argument,” he says, “but cities at that point were not getting the attention they are today.”