Social Architecture

[Image: Photo by Haylie Chan & Zelig Fok, via Dezeen].

Students at the Yale School of Architecture have realized a really impressive residential project, noteworthy both for its refined appearance and for its social mission: intended to house local homeless families, the project kicks off “a five-year collaboration with Columbus House, a New Haven-based homelessness services provider.”

The two-family home is constructed from prefabricated units, and is “sited on a formerly vacant corner lot on Adeline Street” in New Haven. It includes “two units that are separated by a walkway, but under the same roof, and adorned with large windows that balance the needs of openness and privacy.”

[Image: Photo by Haylie Chan & Zelig Fok, via Dezeen].

As Dezeen explains, “The building was designed by students in the Jim Vlock First Year Building Project, a programme established in 1967. The course involves designing and building low-cost homes in New Haven, the city where Yale is located. First-year architecture students are required to participate in the programme as part of the school’s curriculum.” Here is a house from 2015, for example.

This particular structure is the first in what I understand to be a series of projects undertaken with funding and planning input from Columbus House. In a press release, the organization’s president remarked that their goal “is to end homelessness, and we do that by getting people housed… Every unit that we add toward the affordable housing stock in New Haven helps us come closer to that goal. We are delighted with the house on Adeline Street and with the relationship with Yale School of Architecture that has grown out of this project.”

[Image: Photo by Haylie Chan & Zelig Fok, via Dezeen].

On the most basic level, it’s exciting to see a student project inspired by such a clear social mission, especially one that has also resulted in a building I’d be thrilled to live in myself.

Read more courtesy of Yale University or Dezeen.