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UNIVERSAL HOUSING PROPOSAL - NEW HOUSING NY

• The Universal Housing Proposal won Honorable Mention in the 2003 New Housing New York Competition and was commissioned for the cover of January 2004 Metropolis.
• New York, NY
• Organizers: AIA and Metropolis Magazine
• Douglas Gauthier and Jeremy Edmiston; Sarkis Arakelyan, Amber Lynn Bard, Ayat Fadaifard, Ioanna Karagiannakou, Jarko Karawczyk, Cassandra Thornburg, Felicity Wade
• Buro Happold, Consulting Engineers

The Universal Housing is a proposal for low income, sustainable, urban housing. This housing block is twelve stories high and promotes community through a range of programs that exist along a series of ramps within the building, comprising a useful and necessary public space. These programs and the series of ramps create a community infrastructure woven into the domestic environment and make social activity a part of the building circulation. The retail space, pool, communal kitchen, community center, and two garden zones serve an intergenerational population of residents – students, professionals, families, elderly. This domestic diversity is further promoted by different unit types: assisted-living units, studios, dorm-style rooms, and one- and two-bedroom apartments.

The Universal Housing proposal maximizes the building’s efficiency, giving the public and usable space of the housing 95% of the actual building, a percentage that is usually much lower due to an unoccupiable core of circulation, elevators, stairs, ducts, etc. Our housing project achieves this maximization of occupiable space through the use of functional circulation space and split-level apartments that reduce the need for elevator corridors to every two and a half floors.

All content © 2011 GAuthier Architect P.C.