ASSEMBLIES

urban micro-unit

“What is an architecture of aggregation that transcends the individual unit and is not subservient to a monotonous mass?”

Housing has long been a pedagogical staple of architectural education. It comes with a rich legacy of precedence anchored by modernism’s quest for a model of social dwelling that corresponded to the egalitarian ideals associated with the industrial revolution, mass production, and the then newfound freedoms available to the working class. The clarity of the problem was directly related to a modernist tenet of design that centered on functionality and beauty in accordance with a system of mechanical reproduction.

For architects at the turn of the 20th century, the migration from the agrarian to the urban spurred on by factory job opportunities and a new sense of independence for the working class consolidated into a crystal clear problem: how do you house all these people and what is the architectural expression for it? This type of housing often comes with the prefix of ow-income or social or public, which also comes with the stigma associated with economic status. Rather than identify the housing type in terms of class or status, the studio will frame it in terms of setting: urban housing.