Advanced Studio | Spring 2023

YSOA | Yale University

Title: Don’t Let Me Down: Utopian Socialism Revisited

This project addresses one of the most important challenges of the twenty-first century: the housing problem. It examines the relationship between architecture and alternative forms of social organization that challenge the standards of the nuclear family. The dynamic of the American family has changed significantly over the last seventy years, moving from the nuclear family model to a wide range of diverse family configurations. Due to the fast pace of this evolution, domestic architecture has not matched these rapid, progressive changes. Since the 1960’s, there has been a persistent restructuring in the composition of American households, a trend that has reached several industrialized nations worldwide. According to recent statistics, the traditional two-parent, first marriage, with children household comprises less than half of American households. This data is consistent with the decline in the number of children living in a two-parent household and fertility rates, together with the increase in the median age of average first marriages and the number of single-adult households. With longer life expectancies, the elderly population is comprising a larger percentage, many of them living alone. These smaller households are prone to financial stress, domestic burdens, safety concerns, and feelings of loneliness.

These social changes are interconnected with the demands that the current system promotes which are subtly altering the ways society interacts, produces, and consumes. This phenomenon reflects a similar paradigm shift that resulted from the Industrial Revolution. As a response, the utopian socialists proposed communal living solutions that questioned traditional roles, reflecting on factors such as the nuclear family, the opposition between private and public, the dichotomy between multiplicity and unity, and hierarchical structures that contribute to longevity. My proposal will analyze these utopian socialist models, developed during the nineteenth century, comparing them to current leading projects as well as synthesizing their components to apply to society’s present needs. The setting for the project is Manhattan; the borough released a report in February 2023 detailing their intentions to build new housing opportunities in the coming years to address the challenges that residents of the city are facing. The middle-class, a critical social group in maintaining the balance of the city, has been driven out in the last decades by rising costs of living and gentrification. As a solution, the project proposes a flexible system composed of diverse typologies of communal living to address this issue by filling empty lots listed in the report. The 35,000 new units will provide affordable options to the middle class that are tailored to the growing diversity in family living arrangements.

Advanced Studio | Fall 2022

YSOA | Yale University

Title: All You Need Is Love: Great Houses in New Mexico

The history of New Mexico is founded upon the idea of community. In Native American pueblos, community was at the core of their values. It supported their safety, sustainability, and longevity as well as created groups with deep cultural ties and strengthened connectivity. In today’s world, the idea of community has been dramatically weakened; one of the greatest challenges we face is isolation and the prioritization of the individual. The extension of Santa Fe is an example of this situation: the suburban environment has been shaped by a sea of single-family houses where the car and the individual are prioritized.

My project proposes an alternative way of living by returning to New Mexico’s community-based roots where social interaction, participation, and community engagement are prioritized as a way to facilitate community and find commonality amid differences in age, gender, race, and culture. The project consists of three great houses whose sizes are similar to the great house of Pueblo Bonito, each one creating a semi-open courtyard to function as a type of plaza. The houses consist of units of varying sizes, accommodating groups of between 4 and 16 people to create different sharing environments. It also promotes different levels of privacy: there is the individual cell consisting of a bedroom and a bathroom, followed by a larger area with 1-3 kitchens and several communal spaces. Each of these units contains a shaded area of the same size as the built area. Due to the climate, the intention is that the shaded area can be used throughout the year as an extension of the house, becoming an additional space for social interaction. 

This project proposes an alternative way to resolve some of the issues we are facing as a society today. By looking at the origins of native communities and combining them with modern modes of communal living, we can create solutions that benefit the individual as well as the whole.

Advanced Studio | Spring 2022

YSOA | Yale University

Title: Come Together: From First Houses to First Cohouses

First Houses, completed in 1936, was the first public low-income housing project in the United States. Started as an experiment to improve unhealthy living conditions in New York City tenements, First Houses took the garden apartment as a model. Comprised of five urban villas and three other buildings, the plot was never closed creating an L-shape with an interior courtyard. Where the original tenements stood, there is now a vast parking lot, which will serve as the site for the first public cohousing in NYC. Rethinking the typology of the urban villa, the project aims to complete the plot, with a building that is simultaneously both one and five urban villas. Like First Houses, First Cohouses is an experimental solution to a developing problem. Until now, cohousing has been restricted to private investment with high barriers to entry creating homogeneous communities. First Cohouses tackles these high barriers to entry and the incorporation of heterogeneity into cohousing systems, maximizing the benefits of cohousing for low-income groups. It will be particularly beneficial for the large immigrant population in NYC that seeks community while so far from family, as well as empty nesters, single people, divorced people, and the elderly.

The wide corridor becomes an interior “street” with dynamic opportunities for interaction and the feel of an extended living room. While the four units per floor of First Houses were designed for a standard nuclear family, First Cohouses possesses a much more flexible and adaptable design plan targeted toward the current demographic changes in American Society. First Cohouses features 20 permutations of 4 different sized apartments, a covered garden, community facilities like a communal kitchen and meeting rooms, retail space and terraces. In adapting the cohousing model for public housing use, the New York City Housing Authority would lay a foundation that could again change public housing for years to come.

Advanced Studio | Fall 2021

YSOA | Yale University

Title: Here Comes the Sun: A Sustainable Future for NYCHA

The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) started with the intention of implementing sustainable solutions to the housing problem in New York City. Developed in 1957, George Washington Houses is already outdated: the rigid layout of the apartments were tailored to the American family of the 1950s, which is vastly different from the American family of 2021. The building has barely been refurbished since then, and current residents are living in similar poor conditions to those NYCHA was trying to eradicate. This project, Here Comes the Sun: A Sustainable Future for NYCHA addresses the most urgent issues of NYCHA residents today, including unhealthy living conditions, fractured community engagement, and the changing demographics of low-income families, while also proposing a flexible and sustainable model that will endure future changes in the American family. The first stage begins with a full renovation of the interiors, updating amenities like water and heat to current standards.

The second stage introduces a new typology for the apartment layouts that is more conducive to contemporary family dynamics. This proposal will replace the isolated rooms connected by a closed hallway with a functional, multi-purpose, open space that will reinforce interaction between family members. The addition of balconies protected by mobile shutters psychologically expands the interior space, increasing light and ventilation. To facilitate orientation, counter monotony and promote community, each building is characterized by different colored shutters. The original homogeneous layout is replaced by a flexible floor plan with twenty-five permutations, from studios to four-bedrooms, expanding the plan from eight apartment units per floor to twelve. This changeable organization will allow NYCHA’s investment to outlast impending social and demographic changes in the years to come.