Now common to private residential design, it remains a mysterious luxury to public housing, most of which perseveres in a 19th-century plan. The Greenpoint Renaissance Housing project in Brooklyn is an example of a public project in which the community, in particular women, participated in the plan of new residential units. Thirty-three are now occupied. One of their first priorities was an open kitchen. And they did.
Women are the natural nurturers of their families.
I think that's why we were able to suggest things that would benefit the home. The fact that the kitchens were built in such a way that a mother could watch her children. It is an inversion of the frontier that faced rich women like Susan Lawrence Dana at the beginning of the century, who built a place for the community in her home. They're not tainted by preconceptions. She juggled the outside world and her household.