As the architecture, planning and design firm RKTB Architects expands its housing expertise across the northeastern United States, one of their lead architects, Alex Brito, is digging his heels into the communities he knows best, in and around New York City.
Images Courtesy of: RKTB
Brito’s leadership is so focused that the Board of Directors of the nonprofit Citizens Housing & Planning Council (CHPC) invited him to join the Board this year, an invitation conveyed to Brito by executive director Howard Slatkin following a recommendation from another longtime CHPC board member. A blue-ribbon research and education organization focused on housing and planning policy in New York City, CHPC benefits immediately and widely from Brito’s growing up in West Harlem and his hands-on involvement and expertise in large, high-profile housing projects and policies in dozens of communities, from his own neighborhood to the Bronx to Crown Heights, Brooklyn and to Astoria, Queens.
“Since 1937, CHPC has been bringing together leaders in architecture, housing, finance, planning, and law to help us address New York City’s most pressing housing and neighborhood needs,” says Slatkin, who is also on the faculty at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. “Alex Brito will bring his insights to bear on our research and policy work and continue RKTB’s longstanding contributions among the distinguished professionals comprising our board.”
Named to the Board of Directors in January 2025, Brito has been spreading a national message of rising to meet the current U.S. need for six million units of housing, a projected shortfall now causing record homelessness and barriers to affordability and homeownership. He sees his work with CHPC as expanding his impact as a leading architect.
“For nearly 90 years CHPC’s mission has been to develop and advance practical public policies to support the housing stock of the city by better understanding New York’s most pressing housing and neighborhood needs,” says Alex Brito, AIA, whose firm RKTB won a prestigious housing leadership award last year from the American Institute of Architects – New York Chapter (AIANY). “While the group was ‘created to fight slums,’ as the newspapers said back then, CHPC became a valuable resource for tackling all of the city’s housing and urban development issues.”
CHPC’s research and education work has helped to shape housing policy in NYC’s neighborhoods, adds Brito. A team of expert research staff are led by a diverse board of 90 practitioners in the fields of urban planning, architecture, zoning and land use law, housing finance and development, and community development. Brito notes that his appointment continues a long tradition of RKTB partners serving on the CHPC board, beginning with firm co-founder the late Bernard Rothzeid, FAIA, and subsequently design principal Carmi Bee, FAIA, who recommended Brito.
Image Courtesy of: RKTB
About RKTB
Known for their work across the full continuum of housing solutions — from shelters and navigation centers for the unhoused, to deeply affordable and low-cost permanent housing, to mixed-income and market-rate developments created for seniors, veterans and entire communities — RKTB has completed hundreds of projects over 60 years for thousands of diverse people of varied backgrounds, budgets and aspirations.
Reflecting their success, RKTB has announced a number of new commissions reflecting this track record across the full continuum of housing types. They include: a 1,600-unit renovation campaign for the New York City Housing Authority; new infill and small-lot projects on 18 sites; a 130-bed men’s shelter in Riverdale, N.Y.; the rehabilitation of a three-building cluster in Upper Manhattan; and a new mixed-use housing and cultural complex in Astoria, Queens. Recently completed works include the 52-unit One Sullivan Place in Brooklyn for seniors and mixed-income tenants, a 36-unit for-profit affordable housing development in the Williamsbridge section of the Bronx, and the nonprofit-led Phoenix Estates II in Hunts Point, Bronx, with 108 affordable units for a mix of families and senior citizens.
Both Bronx projects were led by Brito, who is currently leading a modernization effort for the city’s Affordable Neighborhood Cooperative Program to address a three-building cluster totaling 69 units in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood where he grew up.
Feature Image Courtesy of: RKTB
