For the 50th anniversary of the Jim Vlock Building Project, the Yale School of Architecture partnered with Columbus House, a non-profit organization that has been providing solutions to homelessness in the New Haven area since 1982. Columbus House provides emergency shelter and a continuum of housing and services designed to help people who are homeless or at risk to move towards independence.

This proposal is a 1,000 square foot house of two separate dwellings, located on a corner lot in New Haven’s Hill neighborhood. Students are challenged to develop a cost-efficient, flexible design that tackles replicability in material, means, and method of construction with an emphasis on prefabrication and modularity.

2017
Yale School of Architecture Building Project 2017 Winning Design

Project Team: Lani Barry, Sunny Sui, Vivian Tsai, Dan Whitcombe, Ray Wu, Winston Yuen, Ethan Zisson 

ROLES: Schematic Design, Orthographic Drawings, Renderings, Photography, Social Media, Construction

PROGRAM: Duplex - Single Family & Studio Units
LOCATION: New Haven, Connecticut

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Photos  ︎

This house acknowledges its deviation from the typical New Haven house type, while being site specific. The gabled roof and shingled exterior allude to its neighbors,while its roofline reflectsvand accentuates the site’s grade change.

The center cross axis acts as a shared breezeway and entryway, signifying a change in privacy when transitioning from street to residential entrance.

The east side of the home contains an efficiency unit, while the west unit is a 2 bedroom family unit, with private spaces bridging across its neighboring unit on the second floor.

Much of the house, including dormers, window frames, stairs, and cabinetry were prefabricated in eight-foot modules in a warehouse on Yale’s West Campus, shortening the time needed for on site construction.

The need for prefabrication placed a higher premium on planning. Work down to the level of nails and fasteners, to crane placement and scheduling were anticipated in the design process, in many ways attempting to challenge the conventional construction process of a stick-frame house.