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This collection includes research materials, publication manuscripts, notes, correspondence, and architectural drawings related to the academic study, teaching, and writings of architect and urban historian Richard Plunz. The bulk of the collection contains research papers, administrative records, notes, and sketches, as well as reproductions of architectural drawings by other architects for various properties owned by the New York City Housing Authority, gathered by Plunz and his Urban Design Research Group students during their studies on the concept of "defensible space" in New York City public housing. Also included in this collection are notes and draft manuscripts for "Design and the Public Good" [Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 1982], Plunz's compilation of writings by architect and educator Serge Chermayeff, as well as general research files about and correspondence with Chermayeff. Lastly, a small body of reproduced drawings documents various historic structures on Ellis Island, the 39th St. Ferry Terminal building in Manhattan and Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn.

This collection contains materials related to Chermayeff's personal, professional, and academic lives, the bulk originating during his residency in the United States, beginning in the late 1930s. Project records document the full range of his work, including many records from his British period. The collection also contains extensive correspondence with personal friends, clients, and professional and academic colleagues.