Bold Lines on the Block In Bed-Stuy, a deconstructivist tries his hand at affordable housing.

WALK DOWN AN ordinary, blah-colored stretch of Marcus Garvey Boulevard in Bedford-Stuyvesant, past the dispiriting bulk of Woodhull Hospital and the brown-brick boxes of the Sumner Houses, and you'll come upon an incongruous apparition, a giant sugar cube that's been carved, beveled, and knocked askew.

- 

This work of ambitious architecture was executed on a spare budget for residents with meager incomes. Startlingly, the Atrium at Sumner, an affordable-housing development for seniors and veterans of the shelter system, was designed by the firm of Daniel Libeskind, he of the diagonal saber slash, the slanted wall, the faceted bulge, and the pointed prow-the master, that is, of the kind of jagged form that would defy attempts to gift-wrap it.

The Jewish Museum in Berlin, which opened in 2001, established Libeskind as a pioneer of deconstructivism, a style based on the illusion that buildings were lifting off, bursting, imploding, or peeling apart. After 9/11, when he was appointed master planner of the World Trade Center rebuilding project, he became famous as the embodiment of advanced architecture, headlining a period when a dozen or so celebrities scattered the world with signature structures. You might not know where a building was or what it was for or how it stood up, but you could quickly identify who designed it. Libeskind's global brand would seem like an odd choice for this tier of New York's urban shelter, sort of like handing out food-bank groceries in Louis Vuitton bags. (He did design a Vegas mall with a Vuitton store.) Spend time by the Atrium, though, and you begin to see the pairing of high-design auteur and low-income residents meets an assortment of needs and isn't just noblesse oblige. Erected by a cluster of nonprofits-Rise Boro Community Partnership, Selfhelp Community Services-and for-profit developer Urban Builders Collaborative on NYCHA land, the Atrium leavens the neighborhood with 190 new apartments, a community room, fresh landscaping, and a jolt of jauntiness.