PA Affordable Housing Competition: House for Cleveland
A prefabricated superstructure sits on the existing apartment house foundation and extends to the allowable lot lines. Within this frame is inserted a house composed of a living cube and a bar of private bedrooms. Various arrangements of the cube and bar generate dwellings suitable for alternative social groupings.
For example, the plans depict a raised living/dining cube whose stair divides the lower bar asymmetrically into a master bedroom suite and a multiple bedroom unit which can accommodate either children, a "grandfather flat". or a rental unit with an added kitchenette. A house composed of two cubes would be suitable for unrelated adults.
Where the frame is unoccupied it can be an open garden, glazed greenhouse, or covered workshop/garage.
Like the cities of medieval Europe, the older American city is shrinking. The apartment house site will be replaced by a single family dwelling. Our project both documents this phenomenon and bridges the shift in urban scale. The greenhouse skeleton marks the densest urban condition while the home itself can fill the frame to various degrees.