Throughout the twentieth century, architects have used mass housing as a testing ground for giving agency to new publics. Today, the dense processes of privatization have transformed housing into a mass template, repeated ad nauseam under the pretense that one model of living fits all. In response, architecture can operate from marginalized points of society to distill latent models that critique and reconfigure the ubiquitous yet rarely questioned structures that organize our quotidian lives.
The studio will study supportive housing as a point of departure for understanding housing as not just a means to an end, but also how collectivity may provide shared resources that in turn empower the individual. Such types include housing for the homeless, SRO’s, and senior communities.Furthermore, we will not just be content with staying in the margins, but explore how this position becomes a place of action to rethink how to live in the center. Toward that goal, we will also study the underlying tectonic, social, and economic structures that regulate the center in search of opportunistic moments of engagement.
