Local studio Dattner Architects has balanced new construction and historic preservation for the addition of social housing to a historic church campus in the Bronx , New York.

Located in the borough's Fordham neighbourhood, St James Terrace offers affordable housing combined with supportive spaces in a purpose-built building bookending a landmarked Episcopal church, whose gothic arches provide an important visual connection.

Dattner Architects has completed an affordable housing project in the Bronx

Long Island-based nonprofit Concern Housing tasked Dattner Architects with inserting a mixed-use residential building that wraps the western and southern edges of the site, where it helps define a new landscaped courtyard between it and historic St James Episcopal Church.

The studio responded with a nine-storey building that "dignifies" the 160-year-old church while working within the requirements of the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC).

The building was informed by a neighbouring church

"The…