Demolition of a housing project, designed by late American architect Paul Rudolph in the 1970s, has been blocked in its final stage because a resident has refused to move off the premises.
Long-time resident John Schmidt has refused to move from the Shoreline Apartments, designed by Rudolph as an affordable housing development in Buffalo, New York, despite a series of demolitions over the past two years.
Photograph by GE Kidder Smith, courtesy Massachusetts Institute of Technology
As of earlier this month, Schmidt was the only one still living in the brutalist complex and has been taken to court after halting local firm Norstar Development's final stage of demolition.
Norstar claims that Schmidt is not safe living there by himself, and hopes to resume the project in the spring. A little over half of Shoreline's 426 units were occupied when Norstar acquired the site in 2005, with plans to redevelop the complex ? located close to the Lake Erie waterfront on Niagara Street.

The Shoreline Apartments site comprises wave-like, multi-tiered buildings surrounded by sidewalks, grassy areas, and series of small roundabouts.
Buildings are faced in ribbed, bush-hammered concrete and topped with a collection of pitched roofs, arranged at different heights.
On the upper levels are outdoor porches with half-walls that match the overall exterior. Industrial metal doors demarcate entry points with numbers overhead, leading to interior staircases and hallways.

In 2006, most of the devel...