Thoughtful Architecture
News and insight from the architects and designers at Think!
October 2026
ShareNYC offers new co-housing opportunity
Designed specifically for homeless LGBTQIA+ young adults aged 18-25, ShareNYC is being led by Ascendant Neighborhood Development (AND) in partnership with the Ali Forney Center. Read more
Bridge Rockaway wins SARA National Award
Adding to Bridge Rockaway’s accolades, the project is being honored at the 2026 SARA National Awards.
Three new buildings in Brownsville
Think! is designing affordable housing buildings on three sites in Brownsville for Fifth Avenue Committee.
Think! on the SPEED Taskforce
Members of the Think! team provided insight to move the Mayor’s SPEED Report forward.
Unitized façade panels and xxx at 570 Eldert Lane
Construction is underway at the 196,000 sf affordable housing project in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn.
Mayor Mamdani brings global Mayors to Glenmore Manor
Glenmore Manor was used as an example of the work the city is doing to create affordable housing. Read more
ShareNYC: a new model for co-housing
This proposed building in Harlem has been designed and developed as the result of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s ShareNYC initiative which seeks to explore new models of housing for underserved NYC groups and communities, specifically a co‐housing approach. ShareNYC addresses a critical need for supportive housing, specifically for homeless LGBTQIA+ young adults aged 18-25 aging out of foster care. The project is designed for Ascendant Neighborhood Development (AND) in partnership with the Ali Forney Center (AFC).
Think!’s design for ShareNYC's revolves around 8-bedroom duplex living units. Each duplex offers individual bedrooms, with one accessible bathroom for every two bedrooms. Communal areas within the duplexes include shared cooking and dining facilities, double-height living rooms with interconnecting stairs, study areas, and laundry amenities. These spaces are intentionally designed to promote a sense of community and positive resident interaction. The first two floors of the building will house support services for the residents as well as a multi-purpose room opening onto a landscaped garden. Ali Forney Center, the leading non-profit dedicated to LGBTQIA+ homeless youth in the United States, will provide on-site social services for residents. In addition to housing, residents gain access to a wide array of supportive programs.
Three new affordable housing buildings in Brownsville
Following on from the success of Bridge Rockaway and the near completion of Glenmore Manor, Think! is currently designing more housing in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Designed for the Fifth Avenue Committee (FAC) the project will create 69 units of deeply affordable housing across three new buildings. The project comprises 1733 Saint Marks Avenue – 11-story building, 548 Thomas S. Boyland Street – 8-story building and 425 Mother Gaston Boulevard – 6-story building.
All residential units will be affordable to households at or below 80% of Area Median Income (AMI). In addition to residential space, the development will include approximately 2,620 square feet of community facility space at the St. Marks building to serve local community needs.
The buildings are being designed using Passive House principles and will incorporate highly insulated building envelopes, energy-efficient VRF HVAC systems with separate metering, high-efficiency hot water heaters and appliances, individual water metering for all units, stormwater management, including dry wells for on-site retention and accessibility features meeting current HPD and code requirements.
Construction will start later this year.
SPEED Taskforce
Think! Project Manager Jeremiah Reilly represented the firm in the advocacy work behind Mayor Mamdani's SPEED Task Force (Streamlining Procedures to Expedite Equitable Development), whose report was released in May. Ahead of that release, Jeremiah worked alongside architectural colleagues and AIA New York's Governmental Affairs Director, Bria Donohue, proposing changes to the affordable housing approvals process — several of which made their way into the report's final recommendations.
One of the case studies in the report hit close to home: Glenmore Manor, a 233-unit affordable building in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and a Think! project. It took 8 years from builder selection to move-in — nearly 4 years just on environmental review and pre-certification before a shovel could hit the ground. Seeing our own project's timeline laid out next to the systemic bottlenecks we'd flagged in those earlier conversations was a powerful reminder of why this advocacy matters. Every month of delay isn't an abstraction; it's a family waiting longer for a stable home.
The report lays out seven major initiatives, from cutting pre-certification review from two years to six months, to a complete overhaul of the affordable housing lottery. We’re especially glad to see the recommendation for a dedicated central project management team assigned to every city-financed affordable project — a proposal Jeremiah pushed for in discussions - meant to give architects and builders a single point of coordination on the city side instead of navigating up to 15 separate agencies on their own. Taken together, these reforms aim to cut 8 months off every affordable housing timeline, and up to 2 years for projects requiring rezoning.
It's rare to see input from the field translate so directly into City Hall recommendations, and rarer still to see it grounded in real project data like Glenmore Manor's. We are grateful to Bria and the AIA New York team for the chance to bring an architect's perspective into that room, and glad to see it reflected in the final report
Bridge Rockaway wins SARA National Award
Adding to Bridge Rockaway’s accolades, the project is being honored at the 2026 SARA National Awards. The project continues to receive attention in both the affordable housing and architectural spheres for its first-of-its-kind composition of uses and its impact on the local community.
Bridge Rockaway, is an innovative development, which uniquely co-locates 174 affordable and supportive housing units with 39,000 sq ft of light manufacturing workshops, creating a new model for urban mixed-use projects.
Mayor Mamdani brings global Mayors to Glenmore Manor
As part of the 2026 UN General Assembly, NYC welcomed Mayors from around the world to exchange ideas and share successes. This included showcasing the work the city is doing in creating affordable housing and Mayor Mamdani selected Think!’s Glenmore Manor to do that. The Mayor and his counterparts were given a tour of the building and met with tenants who have recently moved in.
Principal Jack Esterson was delighted to meet Mayor Mamdani as well as Mayors from major cities around the world.
