Undeveloped
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Undeveloped Real Estates or Speculative Housing
Emma Silverblatt Advised by Florian Idenburg
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THE GREAT AMERICAN HOME
PREACE
then now
10 28 42
IF YOU LIVED HERE, YOU’D BE HOME BY NOW the speculative /the real the individual /the collective
UNDEVELOP : A PROCESS FOR THE DECOMMODIFICATION OF HOUSING
THE GOVERNMENT
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public land zoning
THE OWNER the land trust the brief
48 52 58
THE ARCHITECT system collective system individual
THE INDIVIDUAL units the building
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An Introduction New York City thrives on displacement. For its entire history, groups have inhabited and reinhabited the same neighborhoods, shifting their worth in turns. Each period of ownership adapts the existing neighborhoods, enfolding the architecture in layers of cultural difference, visual expressions of the rich mix of past residences. Today, this process is accelerating, as the boom bust cycles of real estate make millionaire properties in minutes.
Beyond an unconscionable exploitation of the poor, there are other insidious effects of constant real estate development on the city. If we cannot make a place for true inhabitation, even short of ownership, we lose the possibility to create the complexly layered urban fabric of NYC. We lose the physcal expression of cultures and vernaculars not founded on net worth, and the diverse classes of people that make a city functional.
Gentrification has always been a constant cycle here. Today there are low income families residing in ruined victorian mansions, and luxury condominiums springing up on sites of 1970’s blight. It’s not so different than ever before, except for one key detail: because ownership is no longer an option in the socioeconomically stratified areas targeted by developers, the benefits of any exchange of property will never reach the renter residents...and they will therefore never have a place at that bargaining table. Today, the players in these transactions are outsiders. They have no stake in these communities. They build as if every tenant were interchangeable per tax bracket.
At the local level we also lose the dedicated body politic that form a community. Renters are statistically proven to engage less in their neighborhoods than homeowners, even after years of residency. Famous and active neighborhoods like Harlem, composed of 92% renters, are losing their history and their agency, becoming dissolved in the current wave of gentrification. Displaying the strength of their community’s identity, residents of East Harlem have banned together and begun the first land trust in Manhattan to attempt to wrest some permanently affordable property to house their inhabitants.
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This is important for us as architects. When people cannot have a physical connection to place, the identity of both is called into question, and we, often find ourselves the designers of such a change, inevitably reducing vernacular character to profit. Today housing production caters fully to market-driven motion. Apartments are described generically by number of bedrooms, pricepoint amenities, offering fullydeveloped visions of ego parlayed into formalism. You pay for the image of who you want to be, or else you live where you can. There is no agency to create or change your environment in the city. Yet the American Dream is predicated on the founding of one’s own homestead, on the ability to maintain one’s castle. The history of housing in America begins with the individual. Inhabitants built their houses with their own hands, and a budding timber construction industry arose
to meet the needs of settlers without the resources of the European masons. Predicated on unskilled labor and lack of tools, these early settlers invented the balloon frame: a means of erecting a building accomplishable by two men with a hammer. Self-construction and do-it-yourself home improvement has always been integral to the idea of home in this nation. Today’s hardware store and home & garden channel culture still bear testament to that, even though the ability to actually build in NYC has since gone extinct, somewhat understandably. It is obviously not pragmatic for most people today to build their own homes. But before the full privatization of the building industry, there was a moment in American history, between 1900 and 1940 during which time over 70,000 Sears Mail Order homes were sent and built by individual homeowners, an economy made possible by mass production of coordinated readymade parts, and a vast catalogue of customizable designs to choose from. The houses are all composed of the same elements, and all different. To me, this represents an interesting balance between individual control 7
and collective options, a point that could be returned to...
If we could design an economically viable system of coordinated parts to enable the actualization of the multivalent needs of a group of residential inhabitants, we could again empower the individual’s control over their own home. To expand this point I have been engaging with residents of the East Harlem Community Land Trust on a speculative proposal. They would like to develop housing on three vacant lots located near 125th Street and Park Avenue. They are interested in using government bonuses to develop a FRESH food supermarket on the ground floors, and affordable residences above. These are needs specific to the community. Working one-on-one, we produced preliminary layouts for each individual member using a set of abstracted program pieces to facilitate coordination based on a modular size system. Though every persons concerns are different, it becomes the architect’s job to understand the commonalities and to reconcile 8
them into a viable system. By working on a gridded proportion system to ensure that all program elements fit together, a multiplicity of layouts could be accommodated. All materials specified are easily accessible at a home improvement store, and easily changeable by future inhabitants. This both cuts cost and promotes further customization by the individual. The units of the building become an open system. The collective parts of the building must be controlled by the architect, but in this system one is freed from a dependency on formal effects deployed by developers to attract tenants. Here, with a dedicated inhabitant pool already lined up, there would be no burden to perform as a billboard. Instead, to privilege the means of future adaptability, with the long-term well being of the community in mind, the collective systems need only be reconfigurable and durable. They would also benefit from the economy of readymade materials and the ease of dry construction. The atypical application of widely considered ‘low-brow’ materials (aka decommodified) can become an opportunity for the architect to explore new functionalities. The exterior in this project,
formed of panelized, cheap cmu blocks functions as a permissive screen, allowing free facade decisions behind it, and enveloping the building in a distinctive skin. A timber structure, exposed on the interiors, provides cost savings through simplicity of installation, transportation, and labor, while also enabling an exposed human finish to the construction, otherwise cost prohibitive. The 3x10 framework of CLT floor panels may be removed for vertical apartment expansions, while excess space creates permanent shared semienclosed areas on each floor. The immediate goal of this project was to project a place for the individual within the housing market of New York City. But beyond that, latent in this issue is a fundamental problem for us, as architects, to consider in the projects we pursue.
Who should gain the value of our work as architects? What is the power of that agency in practice today?
Architects did not advertise or become starchitecture megacorporations. Their functions were local, their clientele was word of mouth, their prices were fixed. All that changed in the 1970’s with the rise of third-party developers and the breaking up of the AIA price-fixed “racketeering.� Now there was a market for really lucrative global work, and an unavoidable necessity to compete for it. This has changed the practice and its focus. In my opinion, this divorce of architecture from the reality of the inhabitants of its buildings has not benefited quality of design. Without the depth of their input, architects of housing can never engage with a solution more than superficially. Design aside, through these commissions we allow the private sector to wield our knowledge and talents in the exclusive service of monetary exploitation. But this is a choice --- one that we do not need to make. ---ES
Architecture was once a localized service profession.
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THE GREAT AMERICAN HOME
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THEN Men will become necessary to each other through their very differences of character, tastes, and variety of intellectual attainments, and the selfish and narrowing isolation of the separate dwelling will give place to the cooperative apartment-house as surely as the isolated huts of the savage yield to the cities and villages of advancing civilizations John Pickering Putnam, 1890
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American Home Production The history of housing development in the United States is also the history of the country’s evolving concept of the American Dream. From the founding puritan idealism which associated construction with the built form of God’s will, to the suburban singlefamily ‘kingdom’ thought to be the right of each working person, home building and selfownership has long been the fundamental basis for America’s understanding of a moral republic and the fulfillment of a democratic society. As there has never been a premium on the abundant land in this nation, the conquering of the American wilderness through individual settlement has always been encouraged. The easy acquisition of lots and construction loans combined with the wide proliferation of published house ‘patterns’ for the handy settler inspired the attitude that anyone with grit and determination should be able to physically construct the home of their choosing. The ability to do so displayed the highly-prized industriousness and morality of the (originally) Puritan families within. Conversely, the inability to build such a dwelling was thought to indicate a family’s substandard breeding and lack A design from The American Cottage Builder, John Bullock, 1866
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of virtue. Within this religiouslyderived moral code lies an early root of our country’s disdain for aiding the impoverished and homeless today. Aesthetically, the earliest American homes were plain and non-ostentatious timber frames of just a few rooms, covered with clapboard. Though visiting Europeans were shocked by the homogeneity of the housing stock, Americans believed this to be an equalizing element of their idealized society, which would reiterate and strengthen the values of Republicanism in the community and the next generation. In these towns, the restrained aesthetics of single-family houses were seen as visible indication of the rights of citizens to property and the egalitarian nature of the young nation. Early entrepreneurs in the east established the first privatized housing in idyllic woodland landscapes, to utilize nearby streams for power, camouflaging themselves in the romantic image of traditional villages. In such locations where no building companies were located, industrialists had full control to create all of the buildings and housing needed to attract entire families
of workers. To maximize economy, they constructed rows of identical attached houses or duplexes. Private rooms did not exist, and a family would need to bring extended relations or take in boarders to meet minimum demands by the company for worker density (at the time, this count could include children under 12). Here the American tenement typology was born, as the highest quality variety of row housing reserved for skilled workers. Common public sentiment viewed such attached houses as temporary living conditions, mere stopovers along the path of the citizen towards building and owning their own family’s land and home. As first posited by Jeffersonian Republicanism, it was believed that permanent factory town populations would catalyze the dominance of industry and overpower the agrarian economy. This would eventually result in a working class subservient to and dependent on the desires of that industry, undermining the free democratic process, and introducing the corruption and self-serving business interests already prevalent in European cities. Therefore, the privatized construction of multifamily, privatized residential buildings in factory towns was seen as a necessary evil in
these specific locations, and not as an accepted model for American housing. Although not considered an appropriate lifelong circumstance, in the short term the paternalistic guidance of these model towns could aid in educating a rural population in modern lifestyles and morals. Though this narrative persisted in the imagination of the American populace, the reality of industrial growth soon overpowered any beneficent intentions in the largest cities. Influxes of immigrants from first the Napoleonic wars, then the Irish potato famine and finally freed slaves and refugees from the post-Civil War South, incited the mass construction of cheap, crowded privately-owned tenements at a standard far below humane. There is no accident in the fact that most of these tenants were not considered American. As the composition of the nation changed and the economy industrialized, national rhetoric became less interested in its theoretical conception and more interested in production on a global level. In New York City, where the population doubled every decade from 1800 to 1880, formerly single family tenements, built for the wealthy and middle 15
class, became further divided and vertically increased until reaching the frightening density with which we associate this typology today. In the wake of total corruption through the political machines of big cities, community-development bowed in favor of private development. These private developers took full advantage of the situation and realized that housing could become extremely profitable. The new tenements constructed were based on the model of the subdivided former houses, but expanded to cover up to 90% of a given lot, without providing increased expensive amenities like toilets. Disenfranchised and struggling to make ends meet in the inhumane factories of a new nation, the tenants of these buildings had little recourse. Some philanthropic model tenements, funded by private individuals or limited-dividend companies were raised to inspire higher standards in the free market. However, between 1855 and 1905, 200 of these humane dwellings were erected, as compared to 50,000 tenements by speculative private builders. It is clear that these well-intentioned examples made little headway against the gold rush of developer profiteering. By 1900, twothirds of New York residents, a total of 500,000 people 16
were living in tenement slums. The resulting conditions were so extreme, that by the midcentury, for the first time in the nation’s history, the state government of New York deemed it necessary to intervene in issues of housing. Several tenement housing acts were implemented, culminating in the banning of their construction entirely in 1901, by setting minimum square footage and amenity amounts. This marked a decisive turn in the country’s acceptance of governmental action in domestic issues. After the privatization of construction, no other advocates were strong enough to uphold the rights of users of these buildings. By the time of the Great Depression, the public was primed to accept federal housing programs on the grand scale of the New Deal. Though tainted by association with tenement-style multi-family housing, the wealthy apartmenthotel also arose as a typology at this time and enjoyed a period of success in New York City. Known as ‘French flats’ these first types of luxury apartment buildings could offer their wellto-do clientele all the modern conveniences of the industrial age by centralizing amenities. Able to provide top quality meals in communal dining
rooms or full room service, running water, electricity and such limited technological developments as the elevator, tenants were afforded freedom from the maintenance of a typical mansion and the convenience of proximity to the bustling downtown. It was believed that the elevator was a democratizing feature of these new buildings, liberating the typology from the old world discrimination against upper level flats. Yet, these communities were not accepted by the general populace. Victorian society believed firmly that the family unit risked disintegration if a wife was not actively managing domestic duties, and living so close to strangers would breed lewdness and immorality in children. The very concept of a flat was an offense, as the separation within the home of entertaining spaces and bedrooms could not be maintained without stairs. To receive someone in a room on the same level as one’s bed was purely scandalous. As the technologies that had given rise to the apartment hotel became common, the typology faded away, but the benefits of a communal society had been discovered. As an 1874 issue of Scribner’s monthly showcasing The New Homes
of New York raved, “How far space could be economized, and the general wholesomeness of the entire building increased by the abandonment of private kitchens, and the cooking of all the food in one place, is a matter yet untested among people of moderate means. Seeing how well the plan works among the wealthy it would be a marvel if it failed among those whose need...is so much greater.” (75) Here the groundwork was laid for future experiments.
Density Maps of NYC, Tenement House Committee, 1895
Though home ownership was the ideal, by the 1920s, the working class was often unable to achieve it. Alfred E. Smith, governor of New York, sponsored the State Housing Act in 1926, incentivizing limiteddividend companies to create more inexpensive housing projects. The open-minded backers of such projects, unions or philanthropists, encouraged cooperative ownership in their developments.The largest project undertaken through this legislation, and indeed the largest (and first) cooperative housing project in America, the Bronx Coop was established by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers union. Though this ownership method could not support the lowest income tenants, the community board successfully self-organized a Tenement House Densification over Time
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nursery school, playground, library, clinic, laundry and clubs, and remains a democratically run cooperative to this day. Another such in New York, the high-minded City Housing Corporation, inspired by Lewis Mumford’s garden cities, attempted to make suburban life available to non-wealthy communities. This limited-dividend company’s first venture, the 1928 Sunnyside Gardens project in Queens features neatly individualized brick row houses and an apartment complex with a private park and communal backyards. The division of the vehicle-free backyards and pedestrian paths were left to the owners to govern through their community board. The model still maintains its moderateincome population, with a mean salary of $37,962, and provides a striking example of an alternate potential for city life.
sympathies. The idea of multifamily housing was only palatable as a condensed replica of the suburban home, providing all the isolated privacy of the suburbs, without the maintenance of land.
Given land constraint in New York City, the apartment home would eventually win out over single-family garden-city housing, but the communalism of the apartment hotel and the community ownership of had since been lost. Each new apartment unit boasted individual kitchens, bathrooms and appliances, precluding any accusations of socialist
Over time, concessions to outraged lobbyist groups through the Housing Act of 1949 and Urban Renewal Act of 1954 resulted in postwar government policy which reiterated existing ethnic and minority ghettos through class redlining and by scaling complexes to dehumanizing proportions in the name of a hollow efficiency. The renewal
Popular Mechanics, 1953
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The market crash of 1929 and the following depression put an end to any speculative developments, as nearly onehalf of all residential loans became delinquent. The 25% unemployment rate and 40% decrease in incomes primed the public for full Federal policy intervention. With the building, real estate, and banking lobbies railing violently against intervention, public housing fought to the forefront. The projects created were initially successful, constructing at maximum 4-story dwellings in small concentrations blended into existing neighborhoods.
programs were frequently taken advantage of by the private sector, who utilized public money to raze slums and develop more profitable programs than housing in its place. Though touted as the solution to the plagues of the city, often these programs openly segregated, patronized, targeted ethnic enclaves and displaced more people than they were able to assist, while simultaneously promoting the exodus of white, middle-class veterans to begin families in carefully-zoned singlefamily bedroom communities, built by the private sector. Prior to this time, the landowning developer would sell smaller parcels to individual owners or builders after subdividing resulting in houses of diversified neighborhood character. But abundant government financing provided big developers with the resources to buy large areas of land, lay utilities, build houses, and make a profit without diversifying program or design. Ironically, because of these tract house communities, the nation would again bear huge swathes of identical housing, although for the absolute opposite reasons as the founding colonists.
apartment buildings which didn’t permit children and convinced by advertising that dirty, multicultural city life was irreconcilable with family values, these suburbs still presented the image of the American dream. For those who did not qualify as a middle-class nuclear family, this dream was beyond reach and renting overpriced residual metropolitan housing stock was accepted as the only life possible.
To the isolated middle class, priced out of new metropolitan The Razing of Blight, The Bronx, 1970’s
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2009
2013
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NOW Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.
Adam Smith
There can be no common good when the inequality is too great. It will be corrupting.
Aristotle
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Home after the Housing Crisis For more Americans than ever, home ownership is an impossible goal. In the second quarter of 2016, the U.S. homeownership rate fell to 62.5%, the lowest level since 1965. The housing crisis of 2008 stands testament to the enduring power of this dream over the collective consciousness, but also to the inability of the present financing system to provide it. As we now know, the housing and subprime mortgage crisis of 2008 should have come as no surprise. Eager to continue the patterns of home-ownership growth inaugurated in the 60’s and 70’s, but without the swollen baby-boomer population or enough favorable income-to-mortgage ratios, lenders repeatedly lowered their minimum loan qualifications. Between 1999 and 2010, these high risk mortgages artificially inflated homeownership to record highs and drove up land prices to unsustainable levels. Builders increased their output wildly during this time, producing 1,283,000 new single-family house sales in 2005, as compared to, on average, 609,000 between 1990 and 1995. After the burst, the subsequent U.S. Homeownership Rate
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foreclosures decimated mortgage-backed securities and the rates of homeownership in America. More than 9.4 million homes, over half of which were owner-occupied, were forfeited between 2007 and 2015. The following economic recession, stagnant wages and tightened restrictions on lenders ushered in a downward trend in ownership and newhome construction which continues to the present day. One result of this loss is a current boom in rental properties, which has recaptured the largest percentage of the U.S. housing market since the 1960s. In all demographic sectors, but especially with the elderly and families with children, renting is increasing, and today encompasses 36% of American households. Though the construction rates of multi-family property is also on the rise, new build is falling far short of need, and consequently 3.6 million more renting households are now deemed “rent-burdened” (over 30% of income spent on rent) by their monthly payments than in 2008. In the extreme case of NYC, that number is now 55% of all renter households.
Additionally, the size of average apartments is falling, creating specific issues for families with children, who cannot afford the disproportionately larger price for multi-bedroom flats. The increasing members of the low-income segment of renters are also squeezed by this shortage, as the U.S. Department of Housing moves towards subsidies and vouchers for apartments that do not currently exist, with many rentcontrolled units simultaneously expiring into privatization. For the lowest income groups, competition is stiff, and just 31 affordable units exist for every 100 people. Areas with poverty rates above 40% are growing under this pressure, with many showing doubling populations between 2000 and 2014 according to census data. Given the extent of the problem, state and local governments have been forced to take up the burden of redress. Inclusionary zoning has been seen as one solution to these issues, with New York City passing the most stringent mandatory laws this past March. But, this must be understood as a temporary solution, as most of the affordable housing created
by this program will expire within forty years. However, the acknowledgement that neighborhood survival is dependent on creating communities (read: buildings) of mixed incomes and ethnicities is a vital step forward for government housing programs. Even in the short term, a required minimum of lowerincome apartments in a luxury high-rise cannot address the larger scale gentrification maneouvers that destroy the existing neighborhood fabric to erect said building. New York Mayor De Blasio’s ambitious housing program will attempt to use mandatory and optional inclusionary housing along with heavy neighborhood upzoning to create 240,000 affordable apartments within a decade. Sadly, the MIH program in force for these projects will offer several target Area Median Income categories for the choice of developers, and none of them will require serving the lowest 40%. For some areas, that encompasses the majority of the community. Those communities will be steamrolled by the Mayor’s ambitious initiative. By
merely
augmenting
the
Figure HH-4. Growth in living alone 35%
35,000 Number of one person households (1,000s)
30% 25%
30,000 25,000
Percent of households with one person
20%
20,000
15%
15,000
Without Children
10%
10,000
5% 0% 1960
5,000
With Children 1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
0 2005
2010
2015
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplements, 1960 to 2015.
Growth in Living Alone
Note: This figure uses a person weight to describe characteristics of people living in households. As a result, estimates of the number of households do not match estimates of housing units from the Housing Vacancy Survey (HVS). The HVS is weighted to housing units, rather than the population, in order to more accurately estimate the number of occupied and vacant housing units.
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existing system of developer housing, this program will be highly unlikely to produce any radical revampings of multifamily housing, and yet that should be the only vital ambition to a housing proposal at this juncture in American history. The inadvertent liberation of Americans from traditional home ownership also marks the conceptual liberation from the traditional nuclear family, and the possible economic strain of attempting to fit into that mold. Research and observation has since demonstrated that suburban life, founded as it was on the ideal unit of the stay-at-home mother, multiple children, and a working father, did little to aid single or working mothers, empty-nesters, or those unable to afford personal forms of transportation. Today, the homogeneity and lack of freedom in these communities is popularly accused of fostering all kinds of mental and social problems best bred in such isolation. But the disillusionment with this form of suburbia presents an architectural opportunity to give rise to new forms of housing, and institute systems which can better address the diverse needs of the population in a Participatory Housing, Molenvliet, F. Van der Welf, N.J.Habraken, 1977
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more sustainable environment than the detached, vehiculardependent suburb. The simple designation of one, two or three bedroom apartment, emulating the privacy of the singlefamily home for those without recourse, does not resonate given the varied lifestyles of today’s Americans, on the level that suburbia once did with the idealistic postwar populace. According to Census Data, the current composition of the American lifestyle is more fragmented than ever. With the economic burden of student debt and a lack of increasing wages, young adults between the ages of 18 and 34 are increasingly choosing to live with their parents. Marriage rates are steadily decreasing, and only half of all adults over 18 today are living with a spouse, as opposed to 70% in 1967. This also supports a simultaneous major increase in single mothers, especially in the black community. Consistent across all races, there has been a 30% increase in households of one over the past 50 years and the average birthrate has plummeted since 1975. Additionally considering that the largest growing segment of the population is over 65,
and that this is also the largest group of homeowners, it would seem that we are on the verge of a serious mismatch between housing stock and population. Those who continue to build single-family homes are banking on the large millennial generation to get back on their feet and pick up the mantle of suburbia for their eventual homemaking, as the baby boomers move on to senior housing. It seems possible that many would like to do so. A recent ULI survey reports that 60% of 21-38 year olds expect to live in a singlefamily detached home within five years. Expectation does not necessarily translate to reality, and given the financial strain of many in this generation, it seems unlikely that the home eventually obtained will be the same one as their parents. Other evidence is beginning to suggest that millennials are simply not as drawn to the lifestyle of these previous generations in general, preferring to live in “walkable areas� with mixeduse zoning and more activity. Incidentally, this description also matches the needs of a growing elderly population, who are able to live partially independently, and also with
some single mothers, who could benefit from the convenience and proximity of stores and childcare options. Our current preconceptions about housing, codified into zoning, typically work against such logical solutions as city living in mixed-use neighborhoods. For example, though lower income populations could potentially afford desirable mixed-use living from taking on roommates, to this day, that possibility remains technically banned by a NYC law that makes it illegal for more than 3 people to live in an apartment or house. This law stays on the books as a protector of the sanctity of the family as the home unit. Perhaps one solution to the housing dilemma described is simply to stop viewing residential properties in the black and white terms of what we know to be suburban or urban, or to be a family and propose new models and more options for our diversified society. These new typologies could propose varying balances between the two, increasing density and the amenities of either and allowing for individual choices rather than one-size fits all tailoring. Another important component of the conversation is actual
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ownership. Even if housing can meet the needs of different groups, what is the place of ownership? Is there a way to promote home ownership without the crisis of 2008 following? Is it even important to do so, or should we rejoice along with developers at the increasing numbers of renters? Homeownership has long been the main component of household wealth portfolios, helping families to enter the middle class. The American tax system favors homeowners, providing significant deductions for each residence owned. To accept that this is simply beyond the grasp of many Americans is to financially hinder a large segment of society, who will never build equity from their rising monthly rents.
Incomplete Housing, Quinta Monroy, Elemental
On the other hand, homeownership is not a convenient route for those who rely on instability, for example those frequently following job opportunities. Renting provides a greater flexibility for these people, but also greater unpredictability, as annual price hikes are subject to the landlord’s discretion. Interestingly, the flexibility of the renting population has greater effects than just the possibility of physical transience. In elections, data has shown that renters
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historically turn out in far fewer numbers than homeowners. Even among people who have rented a given property for 5 years the turnout probability is still lower than for a homeowner of 1 or 2 years. There is clearly less of an attachment to the community in renter relationships, which results in further marginalization of their rights within it. For those without the option to own a home, engagement with their community may also be less likely. The homeowner’s rights, once instituted by those eager to capitalize on the increased economic activity stimulated by more homes, are therefore always protected, and further political domination is reiterated by their greater voting power. For example, homeowners will often try to stop undesired developments in their neighborhood, which inevitably forces construction into another, often where renters are concentrated. There would appear to be something inherently wrong with the system when it seems to ensure minority or middle and lowerincome residents are being subtly disenfranchised by their available housing options. The solution to these problems is neither to push for overwhelming homeownership, which led to the crisis of 2008, nor to unilaterally support the packing
in of endless generic, whitebox developer rentals. A welldiversified neighborhood is likely the best situated to create strong communities, withstand economic instability and provide for the safety and well being of all residents. To best support a varied and diverse population, perhaps it is best to consider highly variable housing that reflects the same principle. Outside the United States, one can find many examples of a new frontier in housing, beyond the conventional developer plans and minimums. It is not necessary to design housing based on the generic commonalities of life. In fact, the only reason this happens is because our housing process, controlled by third-party developers is fully divorced from the inhabitant. In the 60’s metabolist experimental housing site at Previ, Lima, the units were designed with the ability to enable future growth. Today, each architect’s contribution has become a kernel encased within inhabitant’s adaptations. Similarly, the system designed by John Habraken for participatory housing has allowed individual choices to become expressed in each facade of the Molenvliet housing project. Baugruppen
buildings in Germany continue to rise, developed by cooperative groups of tenants in conjunction with their architects. These homes reflect the individuals living in them, who have realized their idealized lifestyle through cooperation with their neighbors and their neighborhoods to produce a well-considered investment in the built environment. Only when the housing stock is capable of reflecting the multiplicity of its resident’s needs, from the unit, to the building’s ownership, to the relationship between the community and its surrounding region, can people truly make the choices that comprise the original meaning of property in this nation, once born from individuals constructing their own homes under the auspices of an egalitarian society.
Self-Developed Housing, Big Yard, Zanderroth Architekten
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As a rule New York houses are not made for any one in particular; or in case they happen to have been so constructed, they are rarely occupied by the people, or even the same class of people they were originally intended for. As a consequence, the majority of New York households are living like hermit crabs in other creatures’ shells, suiting their lives to dwellings that do not fit them and themselves to a style of living agreeable neither to their taste nor their pocketbooks, -Scribners Monthly, Volume 8 No. 3, 1874
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IF YOU LIVED HERE, YOU’D BE HOME BY NOW
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The Two Architectures of Speculative Housing
432 Park Avenue, 2016
In Manhattan today, we constantly encounter narrowed representations of the American dream in pictoral form: $3,700 per month studio apartments with shared swimming pools, dinnerparty kitchens, and poker rooms lined in leather; spectacular and expensive exterior forms packed with uninspired units; and floorto-ceiling glass deployed to capture the entire city below our gaze. Appealing primarily to the appearance of individualistic identity, today’s market pushes architecture to constantly seek a superficial novelty, to espouse prepackaged consumable qualities for the adoption of net-worth capable inhabitants. The impossible images that we produce and the projections of these buildings on the skyline are real, but for most, their attainment is not.
There is another dominant experience of housing, though it is never advertised, of ‘making do,’ ‘getting by,’ renting for life’s duration, and shuffling between transient communities as land prices rise. For most people in the city, housing encapsulates only that-- it rarely becomes more than necessity, a choice made by financial limitation. For housing constructed at this price point, design is a numbers game. As architects working in this reality, we become relegated towards either the marketable image or bare bones efficiency; we codify these into built form. The commonality of both practices is that the needs of the actual inhabitant functions as an afterthought. Can the building produced still then be called architecture? What is actually lost when housing design is beholden only to profit generation? What
Stuy Town, 1947
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is
the
alternative?
From Speculative Housing to Real Estates
real estates real INHABITANT Long Term vernacular
collective
control SPECIFICITY not-for-profit
individual
architecture
for profit
EFFICIENCY
SPECTACLE
Genericism Interchangability
consumerism iconicity
hyperreAL INHABITANT
speculative housing 56 Leonard Street, 2017
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Re-situating the Inhabitant in Housing
EXISTENZMINIMUM
Coop Zimmer, Hannes Meyer, 1926
EFFICIENCY
The Frankfurt Kitchen, Margerete Schuette-Lihotzky, 1926
The Collective within the Individual
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FREEDOM OF ELEMENTS
TOTAL INDIVIDUATION
Plan Obus, Le Corbusier, 1933
Highrise of Homes, James Wines, 1982
The Individual within the Collective
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The Inhabitant Self-Situates
SYSTEMATIZED CUSToMIZATIoN
Sears Mail-Order Homes, 1908 , 1919 and 1935
MULTIPLE CoLLECTIVES FoR MULTIPLE INDIVIDUALS
34
The Possibilities of Cheap & Easy
The difference between overly deterministic and overly free designs in a proposal for housing is slight when you consider that both only represent a one-size fits all solution. The strength of a system like the Sears Mail Order Homes is the number of choices offered and the multiple scales at which they can be adapted by the inhabitant.
Though proposing that a number of different designs could better serve different individuals may seem less economic, by utilizing existing and cheap systems of ready-made materials one can both reduce overhead and democratize construction of the building, eliminating any custom complexity of construction. These are the exact motivations which originally prompted the invention of the balloon frame and the particular brand of wood construction omnipresent in the United States. Lacking the experienced craftsmen and tools of their European counterparts, early Americans had to recreate construction altogether using the only resource readily available: wood. The wood frame was so flexible, materially efficient and easy to erect that it remains the most popular structure type for single family homes today. 35
Recent innovations with this same material are now leading to a rediscovery of the potentials for wood in taller construction. Wood could soon revolutionize multi-family housing, by bringing the same qualities relevant to early American construction back to urban homes, including ease of construction, adaptability with little skill or investment involved, and cheapness.
Sources
Aureli, Pier Vittorio. The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2011. Print. Austenson, Maxwell, et al. State of New York City’s Housing and Neighborhoods in 2015. New York, New York. New York University Furman Center, 2016 Eidner, Franziska, and Kristien Ring. Selfmade City: Berlin ; Stadtgestaltung Und Wohnprojekte in Eigeninitiative = Self-made City: Berlin ; Self-initiated Urban Living and Architectural Interventions. Berlin: Jovis, 2013. Print. Ford, James. Slums and Housing: With Special Reference to New York City History, Conditions, Policy. With the Collaboration of Katherine Morrow and George N. Thompson and an App., Mainly Architectural by I.N. Phelps Stokes. Westport, CT: Negro U Pr., 1971. Print. Habraken, N. J., and Jonathan Teicher. The structure of the ordinary: form and control in the built environment. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998. Print. Kroll, Lucien, and Peter Blundell-Jones. An architecture of complexity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987. Print. Maak, Niklas. Living Complex: From Zombie City to the New Communal. Muenchen: Hirmer, 2015.
36
Plunz, Richard. A History of Housing in New York City: Dwelling Type and Social Change in the American Metropolis. New York: Columbia UP, 1990. Sennett, Richard. The Craftsman. New Haven: Yale UP, 2008. Print. Sennett, Richard. Together: The Rituals, Pleasures, and Politics of Cooperation. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2012. Print. Williams, Stockton, et al. The Economics of Inclusionary Development. Washington, DC: Urban Land Institute, 2016. United States Census Bureau New York City Department of Planning The State of the Nation’s Housing 2016. Cambridge, MA: The Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, 2016. PwC and the Urban Land Institute: Emerging Trends in Real EstateŽ 2016. Washington, D.C.: PwC and the Urban Land Institute, 2015. Wright, Gwendolyn. Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America. New York: Pantheon, 1981. Print.
37
When visiting Cuba shortly after the revolution, Jean-Paul Sartre had a conversation with Fidel Castro. At one point in the conversation Castro said that the revolution would get people whatever they requested, to which Sartre raised the sensible question: ‘What if they asked for the moon?’ Castro thought for a moment and replied: ‘We may not be able to get it for them, but we would understand that they need it.’ Jean-Paul Sartre
38
UNDEVELOP: A USER’S MANUAL
39
USING THIS guide The following pages outline a process for the self-development of housing through a case study in Harlem, New York. The first important point of self-developing housing is to understand the layers of agency involved at each step of the process. Nothing can be accomplished without the cooperation of these parties, though each is responsible for certain specific aspects. The pages in this manual are keyed to four specfic agents: 1) The Government: responsible for infrastructural and zoning policy, able to assist development through a number of programs, and subsidies, the government has the power to make self-development in accordance to its rules possible. 2) The Owner: Decisions made by the owner can necessitate greater inhabitant participation. Typically, a building is owned during construction by the developer and then turned over to the landlord. In this case study, we will investigate opportunities for the inhabitants to own the land, using the legal entity of the community land trust. This will ensure that the decisions made by the owner and the needs of 40
the inhabitants at the building scale are one and the same. 3) The Architect: Generally hired by the developer to serve the building during construction phase and then cut off from the process following the developer’s resale, the architect in this case study will work for the community land trust to serve inhabitants directly, becoming integrated into the functionality of the community at large and future changes or adaptations to the building. 4) The Inhabitant: The inhabitant in this case study will take on the greater role of speaking to the architect throughout the design process, influencing the layout of their own units, but also in future care and adaptation for the building. The building will be fully adjustable to the inhabitant’s needs, assuming permanent affordability can be maintained by the other agents involved. As a result, inhabitants will have a greater stake in their building and be afforded longevity of residence in their community.
REALM
PROPERTY
CITY
oWner
<30
BUILDING
governMent
UNIT
THE INHABITANT THE ARCHITECT THE OWNER THE GOVERNMENT
architect
TIME
130+
individual
41
acQuiring the land that We already oWn
1 2 3
Almost all of the publically-owned land that moves through the NYC development system ends up in the private sector, where it will be subject to unpredictable changes that destabilize housing, except for one other option.
MITCHELL-LAMA Middle Income Rental & Cooperatives eligibility: income, family size Expires typ. after 20 years
GOVERNMENT OWNED
258,880 on wait list State Authorities subject to fed, state and local laws
NYCHA
SECTION 8 NYCHA: 147,033 families on waitlist 90,000 vouchers 29,000 owners HPD: 35,000 rental subsidies
OFFICE OF NEIGHBORHOOD STRATEGIES
GOVERNMENT ASSISTED
OTHER PROPERTY
PUBLIC HOUSING
HPD DIVISION OF COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS
REDEEMED
DELINQUENT
Any time prior to foreclosure owner can pay off and recover
IN REM
CITY OF NEW YORK TAX LIEN TRUST
Repossessed 100,000 units owned by 1979 Since 1994 98.2% sold 775 Units in 2013 1996-present Sell for 73% of value of unpaid liens $1.3 billion collected >$1,000 in delinquent taxes >3 yrs old
$
421-A, 2016 Investor Bonds 42
Collection Companies
governMent
NYC NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING PLAYBOOK
Small Business Services Department of City Planning Mayor's OffIce NYCEDC
CDCS ELECTED OFFICIALS NEIGHBORHOOD ORGANIZATIONS FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE TAX INCENTIVES
PUBLIC RFPS
NIHOP
NEIGHBORHOOD RESTORE THIRD PARTY TRANSFER
DEVELOPERS
PRIVATE MARKET
FORECLOSED PROPERTY
NOT FOR PROFIT DEVELOPERS
LAND BANK
COMMUNITY LAND TRUST
ULURP REVIEW CDCS 43
vacant puBlically oWned land
LEX ING
TON AV
MA D
ISON AV
Repossessed and vacant lots are common in Harlem, vestiges of the slum clearance of the 1970’s. If the Housing and Preservation Department could be persuaded to sell these to communities for the same prices as they sell them to E 12 9 ST developers ($1), they could be managed as not-for-profit sites permanently.
E 12
7 ST
8 ST
5 AV
6 ST
5 ST
3 ST
E 12
2 ST
MAD
ISON
AV
K
8 ST
4 5 6
E 12
PAR
E 12
R
VEY
RK D ER
GAR
R PA
RIV
HARLEM - 125TH METRO NORTH
RIVE
LEM
CUS
LEM
HAR
MAR
HAR
1807 parK C6-3 8.5 5684 SF 71 UNITS
E 12
4 ST
BR
E 12
E 12
E 12
3 AV
111 e. 123 R7-2 4.6 8578 SF 58 UNITS
E 12
1 ST
5 AV
102 e 123 M1-4 4.6 2018 SF 13 UNITS
ST
E 12
0 ST
TRIB
ORO
TRIB
ORO
E 11
9 ST
BR E
NR
P
E 12
4 ST
E 11
8 ST
PRIVATELY OWNED PUBLICLY OWNED E 11
E 11
PAR
2 AV
K AV
LEX
6 ST
3 AV
ING
TON
AV
1 AV
7 ST
44 E 12
0 ST
BR E
T RP
site 1 : 1807-1811 PARK AVENUE
63 6633 ’ ’’
governMent
990 0’’ 90 ’
10 1100 1’ 11’ ’
site 2 : 107-111 E 123RD STREET :
885 5’’ 85 ’
site 3 : 102 E 123RD STREET 220 0’’ 20 ’
1’’ 11001’ 1 10
45
By code: considerations For laying urBan tract housing
1. ESTABLISH YOUR READING OF THE CODE Determine what to maximize. For a developer, this is typically profit. For this project, it’s Legal Bedrooms. •
The community wants to maximize affordable units: privileging bedrooms equates to the maximum potential units possible if the only unit type is studios.
•
The community is concerned about aiding tenants paying their rent: allows tenants to reclaim the increasing land and location value of their property by renting out legal rooms
A legal bedroom in NYC has at least one window with 30’ of clear space beyond.
2. SETBACKS AND LIMITS This case study uses the site at 1807 Park: C6-3 = R9 Height Limit: 145’ Setback : 10’ after 95’ Bonus up to 15’ available for inclusion of FRESH supermarket
46
3. OPEN SPACE REQUIREMENT C6-3 = R9
” ’-0 10 10 ’-0 ”
Lot Coverage : 70% Residential 100% Commercial (2 FAR) Position the open space so that 30’ distances are maximized
49’-0”
Utilize the available buildable area to lay out a 20’ x 10’ structural grid.
40’-0”
4. MAXIMIZE ENVELOPE FOR UNIT INFILL Max out the building envelope with the grid framework: Maintaining strict division of systems allows each to function independently and permits greater freedom for elements.
95’-0”
Units can then be seen as an independent system of infill pieces
145’-0”
47
governMent
Rear Yard Requirement: None, short side of block, interior (Article 3: 23-156)
oWnership Models To change the outcome of housing production, one must change the chain of command A developer acquires land, builds on it, then sells upon completion for instant returns. As the developer holds the contract of the architects, the architect also loses connection with the project at this point, except for personal liability in the case of lawsuits. In the Land Trust model, the community is the owner, and the inhabitant and can therefore work directly with the architect at all scales even beyond the period of construction.
PRIVATIZED
land owner developer architect land owner community
land owner
community
DEMOCRACRATIC
land owner community
representative architect
land owner community
architect
COLLECTIVE
48
architect
community
AUTHORITARIAN
EAST HARLEM COMMUNITY LAND TRUST East Harlem, has organized Manhattan’s first community land trust to permanently preserve and manage publically owned land for housing low income members of the community. Ideally this will combat the displacement of a poor community facing a wave of gentrification due to new zoning regulations.
293 VACANT LOTS, 50 HPD OWNED
92%
Renters
68%
+53% RENT INCREASE IN TEN YEARS Owners
25% AFFORDABLE HOUSING LOST BY 2040 32%
25%
50.8% ARE “RENT-BURDENED” 8%
35% INCREASE OF MEDIAN INCOME 2000-2013
East Harlem Manhattan NYC 37% OF RESIDENTS EARN <23,350 A YEAR
$74 MILLION NYCHA DEFICIT, 2015
45.3% RECEIVE GOVERNMENT INCOME SUPPORT
40% AMI : LOWEST TIER INCLUDED IN MIH renter to oWner ratio
oWner
incoMe groups
TRANSPORTATION 92%
MIXED /COMMERCIAL
75%
37%
VACANT LAND
16%
17%
COMMERCIAL /OFFICE
4.2% 2.5%
6.6%
8.7%
9.7%
Owners
7%
21.4%
51-80 % AMI
81-100 % AMI
$23,351$38,450
$38,450$62,150
$62,151$77,000
<$23,351
land uses
32%
25%
8%
OTHER 31-50 % AMI
68%
INSTITUTIONS
Renters 23%
0-30 % AMI
governMent
92% ARE RENTERS 75%
101 % AMI+
MULTI-FAMILY Manhattan
East Harlem
NYC
>$77,700
44%
OPEN SPACE MIXED / COMMERCIAL
TRANSPORTATION
VACANT LAND
COMMERCIAL /OFFICE
UNREGULATED
INSTITUTIONS 4.2% 2.5%
6.6%
8.7%
37%
9.7%
22% 39%
OTHER
21.4%
MULTI-FAMILY
RENT STABILIZED
GOVERNMENT ASSISTED
23%
16%
16%
44%
17%
28%
7%
OPEN SPACE
NYCHA
49 0-30 % AMI
31-50 % AMI
51-80 % AMI
81-100 % AMI
101 % AMI+
the BrieF
AT LEAST 20%
These decisions were made in a series of meetings and discussions with residents of East Harlem, specifically the housing rights advocacy group of Picture the Homeless, parent organization to the East Harlem Community Land Trust. 0%
40%
20% 20%
15%
30%
50%
80%
100%
resident preFerences
incoMe groups served By neW Build units 20% UNRESTRICTED
TIER 1 RESIDENTS OF EAST HARLEM HOMELESS POPULATION
TIER 2
AT LEAST 20%
FORMER LONG TERM RESIDENTS OF EAST HARLEM SENIOR CITIZENS
TIER 3 0%
15%
30%
50%
80%
100%
130%
165%
TIER 1 RESIDENTS OF EAST HARLEM HOMELESS POPULATION
TIER 2 FORMER LONG TERM RESIDENTS OF EAST HARLEM SENIOR CITIZENS
SINGLE-PARENT/SINGLE INCOME DISABLED POPULATIONS
VETERANS
TIER 3 UNION MEMBERS ARTISTS
50
UNION MEMBERS ARTISTS
SINGLE-PARENT/SINGLE INCOME DISABLED POPULATIONS
130%
Building oWnership Models CHECK ALL THAT APPLY
COMMUNITY LAND TRUST
PRIVATELY OWNED governMent
unit oWnership Models CHECK ALL THAT APPLY
RENT
CO-OPERATIVE
RENT-TO-OWN
CONDOMINIUM
oWner
additional prograM options CHECK ALL THAT APPLY
RETAIL
TYPE:
�����m���e�
FEATURES: • rent subsidizes additional program • 1 to 1 area bonuses available for fresh food stores
COMMERCIAL
COMMUNITY
TYPE:
TYPE: FEATURES: • rent subsidizes additional program • some types may not compatible with housing
51
�pa�� f�� f�o� co��
FEATURES: • non profit • government subsidies available in some instances
oFF the shelF Materials
30 YEARS
Materials have been chosen by the architect to maximize low-tech inexpensive, modular and easily accessible forms of construction, and phased to permit two scales of time operation within one building. Each material has been selevted to be easily accessible to the inhabitant at hardware stores.
Wood
glass
Metal
2X4 STUD
VINYL WINDOW
EXPANDED MESH
150 YEARS
PLYWOOD
HEAVY TIMBER
concrete
CORRUGATED STEEL
GLASS BLOCK
52
CONCRETE MASONRY UNITS
division oF systeMs
governMent
30 YEARS 150 YEARS
oWner
INDIVIDUAL COLLECTIVE
architect
53
unit layouts Each resident composed a unit based on their needs from interlocking program pieces. These schematic layouts are then extrapolated into modular plans by the architect.
54
TWO BEDROOM
L - stu d i o
th e ta stee
th e d o n n a
th e ju a n
th e j u a n d el u x
th e n o r m a n
THREE BEDROOM
th e gr egg
th e p ed r o
oWner
ONE BEDROOM
governMent
STUDIO
th e jo a l
th e j a m es
th e j o ey
architect
th e k ei sh a
th e r o n a ld
th e c h a r m el
th e j ea n n e
th e l esl i e 1 /8 " = 1 '- 0
55
Modular inFill catalogue
STUDIO STUDIO ONE ONE BEDROOM BEDROOM TWO TWO BEDROOM BEDROOM THREE THREE BEDROOM BEDROOM
9 9SFSF 100 100SFSF
1515SFSF
1 0 '- 0 " 1 0 '- 0 "
3 '- 0 " 3 '- 0 "
3 '-30'-"0 "
390 390sfsf
6666SFSF
1 3 '- 6 " 1 3 '- 6 "
134 134SFSF
$$
580 580sfsf
2 0 '- 0 " 2 0 '- 0 "
6 '- 6 " 6 '- 6 "
3030SFSF
200 200SFSF
%%
770 770sfsf
&&
970 970sfsf
0"
"
PROGRAM PROGRAMSIZE SIZE
UNIT UNITSIZE SIZE
2 02'-00'-" 0 "
1 01’ -00’"- 0 "
6 ’ -66’"- 6 "
56
''
((
))
Unit layouts maintain a floor area per regulations by utilizing a single loaded modular system of proportioning. Program pieces can then be derived based on occupant requirements proportionate to this gridded system. The base module is a 3’ x 3’ grid, to allow passage in any configuration.
governMent
10’X10
10’ X 10’
10 X 6’7
6’7X6’7
20’X10’
13’5 X 10’
10’ X 10’ 3’X10’
BATHROOM
KITCHEN
COMMUNITY PATIO 3’ X 6‘7
20’ X 10’ 3’ X 3’
oWner
3’ X 10’
CLOSET 13’5 X 1 0’
FRONT DOOR 10’ X 1 0’
BEDROOM
57
architect
STAIRS
Base plan Using the modular inďŹ ll pieces, the units can be ďŹ t together like a puzzle. To maintain required density limits, extra plots become communal patios. Depending on future upzoning or inhabitant needs, these plots could be sites of expansion for individuals -- subject to land trust approval.
58
inhaBitation plan The plan is not complete until inhabited, as the ďŹ nal level of resoution requires adaptive custom choices made by the residents. over time, through permitted changes and expansions, the building will take on the life of its inhabitants, as their needs change, creating a new potential for the ownership of space in urban multifamily living. governMent oWner architect
AFTER INHABITATION individual
59
THE COMMUNITY ROOM
60
DONNAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S HOUSE
61
62
63
Additional Thanks To: Jacob Lipton Casey Massaro Benzion Rodman Jenny Shen Leigh Silverblatt Antariksh Tandon Emily Wettstein Ryan Whitby
64
Special Thanks To:
Jenny Akchin and Picture The Homeless, Harlem, NYC Participants: Ronald Bowles Jeane Burke Pedro Cabrera Franklin Clark Joal Del Valle Ryan Hickey Charmel Lucas Donna Morgan Joseph Maresco Victor Marte Luis Padillo Norman Polite Anthony Ralph Jose Rodriguez Leslie Vereen
There is no homeless crisis - only a housing crisis.
65