When the architect Carmi Bee first moved to Park Slope, Brooklyn decades ago, the favored activity of his neighbors was to lounge on the stoops of their brownstones, getting to know one another.

“Now that the area’s become gentrified, you don’t see it,” Mr. Bee said, and then laughed. “They’re all working to pay the mortgage, I guess.”

Thus, Mr. Bee, a principal of RKT&B Architects and Urban Designers, said he enjoyed designing a group of 12 contemporary row houses in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, that may bring back the former days of stoop-gathering.

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