Integrated Housing Studio / Spring 2023
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Baltimore, Maryland
Professors Mersiha Veledar, Daisy Ames, Nader Tehrani
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As globalization encounters living practices from diverse cultures, backgrounds and ideologies that question the nuclear family, this housing project proposes a new typology that redefines unit boundaries, flexibility and linkages between families and their larger communities. Openings that puncture a perimeter unit condition invite public events to the block interior, where a central volume houses a theatre and educational programs. To maintain privacy facing the street and intimacy facing the internal courtyard, this project uses a rollable mesh with a minimal profile on one side and a shifting balcony system on the other.
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Enlarged public areas and vertical cuts create access to natural light and views, reimagining traditional double-loaded circulatory spines into shared activity spaces. A new modality where separate units are linked by balconies captures multigenerational and modern living arrangements, allowing connection while retaining privacy. A continuous public promenade spirals sectionally through each complex, leading residents to a central public volume. Urban analyses reveal options to confront Baltimore’s challenging history of redlining, and the unequal distribution of urban “open space” in predominately well-off neighbourhoods, while being confined to small grid interventions elsewhere.