Single Parents

A housing collective

Single Parents Intro

Advised by Alexander Eisenschmidt
2022

In the blocks surrounding Douglass Park, over 80% of households are led by single parents. In addition to performing paid labor to financially support their families, these parents also perform around thirty hours a week of unpaid domestic labor, leaving little time for rest or play or personal development.

After researching historical precendents of collective living, the project proposes collecting and redistributing domestic labor into programs distributed through the neighborhood and connected back to a monolithic housing form with raised corridors.

By moving the burden of domestic labor from the individual to the collective, single parents have time to nurture themselves and their children, instead of merely surviving.

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Homesgarth, Ebenezer Howard, 1909
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Le Familistère Guise, Jean-Baptiste André Godin, 1859
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Unité d'habitation, Le Corbusier, 1952
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The proposal is a monolithic housing collective that spans 3 city blocks, and sits on the viaduct of an unused rail line.
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The housing units follow the linear form of the former railroad, on a single-loaded corridor with the open-air balcony overlooking Douglass Park.
The circulation runs through the balconies of each unit, which are each extensions of their associated unit, a sort of individual porch or outdoor living room. Within the unit, all furniture is built into wooden cores, with a kitchenettes, restrooms, baths, beds, and studies embedded within. Different unit sizes accommodate different family sizes, and as new children arrive, or older children move out, the family can relocate to an appropriately sized unit.
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The doors of the furniture are aligned so that two facing panels can be opened to form a new room, or closed when the division of space is not needed.
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Domestic labor is redistributed to programs placed in the neighborhood and connected back to the housing form with raised corridors. Collective meals are hosted in the shared kitchen and dining facility, and an on-site cafe is open to both residents and the public. A laundry service takes dirty clothes and returns them washed and folded.
Children are cared for at different ages in different facilities, with a nursery and daycare for young children, an after school program for the nearby elementary and middle school, and a recreation center for older children.
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Intro

Next project:

Twelve Brick Walls

A brick pavillion

2020