This proposal was a submission for the Big Ideas for Small Lots NYC competition — a design competition organized by the NYCHPD— calling for small-scale, urban infill housing solutions. We were given a narrow site (17’) to work with, and were asked to develop a creative solution that could be replicated across different site typologies.
Community co-living
The Share House is a way of living that is focused on the economy of sharing and the exchange of quality experiences towards community enhancement. Residents live as part of a collective sharing quality designed spaces and common amenities while being able to retreat to private comfort suites. Co-living revitalizes its constituents by working together encouraging people to stay and contribute to their community thus limiting urban sprawl.
Our proposal seeks to create a place where people can benefit from the economy of co-living in an inspired designed environment. By redefining conventional elements such as hallways and reconstituting them with other collective zones, these public spaces can breakdown into private enclaves that lead to small get-aways. Separated bathrooms and showers are able to be used individually in other efficient ways. The co-living home affords people the option of quality housing enabling them to live with a sense of pride and dignity.
Quality housing
Quality homes at an affordable price are in shortage. As a result, people have been forced to seek alternative forms of shelter and cohabitation in unconventional ways. Communication and information technologies have helped to further redefine home and inform its evolution. In response to this phenomena, Live/Work spaces have become more common place along with other hybrid programs inform new paradigms that negotiate extreme notions of habitation through communion. While other precedents of domestic sharing are evident such as condominiums, hostels, public housing, and other co-ops, none of these models critically leverage the benefits of a shared economy or the cost savings that they employ.
Flexibility
Employing space economy strategies encourages new ways of living that potentially promote more flexibility and innovation than the conventional home prototype. Inspired by the Japanese kyosho jataku [micro-homes] and minka house [modest rural home], multi functional furniture can host all of the essential needs of life and then be folded away to enable rooms to be reconfigured in different ways. Together these methods with the prompt of downsizing work to redirect consumer culture and question values. The possible budget savings allows for better finishes to incorporated and a home cost subsidy.
Intent
The homes reside between the communal spaces that surround them. Thirteen private rooms are spread among four floors containing a suite of four private rooms. Shared bathroom and shower accommodations along with a common kitchen define each of the three upper floors with one accessible studio unit on the ground level. Each public space shares various amenities such as dining tables with lounges for larger collective experiences at multiple levels and lockers room below. Offsets from the spatial
organization produce residuals spaces that make room for personal moments.
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Rooms surround a central light well that connects the most inner spaces to the outside on every floor from the lowest level to the roof. The inclusion of this passive approach allows all floors to have access to natural light and air. The green roof above captures rain water that is collected below and recycled for the residents’ use in the rear gardens. Multilevel terraces weave down the back façade connecting the two gardens providing private reliefs along the way. The ground is pulled back in the rear yard at grade to draw light further into the lower precinct where additional facilities are provided.
The green spaces can be cultivated to raise crops and create opportunities for other sustainable provisions. Harvest can be traded with other community businesses for supplemental income. All landscapes help to minimize heat island effect.The façade inserts the building into the city and invites the community at large in while the enlarged entrance elevates the residents.