New York, New York, USA
The Hillside is a new mixed-use, 100% affordable, 164-unit senior community in Inwood, Manhattan.
It’s designed Passive House, all-electric, is Energystar and NYSERDA-certified, and uses 60% less energy than similar conventionally-designed buildings.
Mechanical systems are VRF heating/cooling, high-performance ERV, low consumption fixtures with submetering.
The structure is 9-story cast-in-place concrete, and required extensive excavation and retaining walls due to challenging site conditions, which were celebrated as features.
The Hillside Senior Affordable Passive House Community by Architecture in Formation won an American Architecture Award 2025 from The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design.
The Hillside is inspired by the distinctive topography into which it nestles – literally the hillside – the craggy Manhattan schist outcroppings, steep canyons, and ever-changing color palette of Fort Tryon Park, adjacent.
With a dense urban site so informed by nature and topography, we felt compelled to celebrate this condition and design a new community that fits in and stands out of its hilly, brick-lined Inwood neighborhood, as the first of a multi-phase 100% affordable development.
The project builds community – gracefully and sustainably – for NYC seniors most in need: local income-challenged older adults, with 30% of the units reserved for formerly homeless individuals and couples.
The project was developed in close collaboration with Rocky Mount Baptist church, who had occupied the underutilized site.
This is a model example of how to address the city’s crushing housing crisis creatively, sustainably and artfully, working with faith-based organizations with strong missions for community building.
The joint-venture development team – a for-profit affordable housing developer, along with one of the city’s most prolific non-profit affordable housing developers with strong roots in senior housing and social services, partnered to create something special on a challenging site in a neighborhood weary of overdevelopment and gentrification.
The non-profit developer had an early commitment to energy-efficient building, having developed the first multi-family Passive House in NYC, now fast becoming the industry standard.
This opportunity arose because the faith-based organization, while financially struggling, sat on a largely underdeveloped parcel of land.
Having declined many an offer from market-rate developers, a committed relationship developed between the development team and the church, where there was a united commitment to do something special and innovative that would be a catalyst for the community and an example of addressing NYC’s housing crisis in a thoughtful way that elevated the lives of the most needy.
Ownership relished creating an innovative project of deep affordability, design excellence, and efficiency.
Occupied for less than a year, it is not uncommon to see three generations of family in the lobby.
Security guards note residents showing off their living quarters to friends and family with pride. One resident extended an open dinner invitation to the developer for “changing her life.”
The design is quietly, confidently evident on multiple layers, inside and out, visible and measurable, surpassing all established project goals: urbanistically, it fits into a quiet, hilly historic street, yet stands proud and bold; architecturally, its copper standing seam street façade will age gracefully, as its many other visible facades play youthfully amidst a unique natural urban landscape. Its interiors are bright, joyful, and welcoming.
Bringing the natural beauty of Fort Tryon Park into the project literally and as inspiration has created a uniquely convivial community atmosphere that is improving lives of elder adults.
The new sanctuary, located below the residential courtyard, lifts the spirit and belies its modest location buried below the courtyard.
Project: The Hillside Senior Affordable Passive House Community
Design Architects: Architecture in Formation
Principal in Charge: Matthew Bremer
Project Manager: Paulo Flores
Design Team: Lucy Kelly, Christopher Seifert, Sinan Ilkdemerci, and Tom Zhu
Architect of Record: SLCE Architects
SLCE Partner in Charge: Gloria Glas
SLCE Project Manager: Angel Rama
SLCE Design Team: Samantha Weinryb
General Contractor: Mega Contracting Group
Developer/Owner/Client: Coconut Properties, Riseboro Community Partnership
Photographers: Chris Cooper Photographer, Matt Dutile
