Big Ideas for Small Lots

In order to meet the challenge of providing affordable housing to every New Yorker on lots that are not conducive to typical floorplates we propose a radical shift in the way we conceive of property:
volume rather than area.

Instead of stacking floorplates one-atop-another we design the home around a volume of 5,120 cubic feet and put forward this space as the privilege of every citizen. These vertically-expansive units are densely aggregated around a central core; they take up less ‘floor’ space than a typical unit but offer an expansiveness available only to the duplex or triplex units of hedge fund titans of our current real estate conception.
We propose an Urban Treehouse to solve our affordable housing crisis, in which residents are densely stacked yet enjoy the spatial equivalent of climbing through the forest, surrounded by the strength and warmth of natural materials and free to organize their space as they see ft.

Project Team: Ana Cubillos-Tores, Ian Carr, David Bench, Jonathan Chesley