[markermiller]

An interesting thought. That may be part of it… but I have a tendency to think the main reason we’re seeing more innovative design in the ‘subsidized’ projects is that the numerous parties involved in “THE PROCESS” (everybody from the neighborhood groups to the developers, city planners and micro-managing Supervisors) are simply more politically invested in seeing these projects through. An architect, if truly left to his own devices, is going to innovate... but if he knows (from experience) that whatever he comes up with is just going to get dumbed-down to utter mediocity in the end, then there's not going to be much design effort thrown on the project in the first place. If an interesting looking building like this were proposed in almost any other neighborhood in the City, you know who’d be the first-line of defense against it: NIMBY Neighborhood Groups (NNGs)! God save our ever-so-precious City.