Cowgill Lobby: Between Neighbors

“Between Neighbors” is an exhibit by Katie MacDonald‘s 2nd year architecture lab exploring the design of spaces in multi-family housing.

Overview: As jobs continue to concentrate in cities and an increasing percentage of the human population moves to urban centers, many cities are experiencing housing shortages. This phenomenon is compounded by the fact that aging postwar housing stock is reaching the end of its lifespan, home ownership is becoming increasingly out of reach for the middle class, and most new residential construction is being targeted toward luxury markets. Through all this, developers have taken the reigns on designing housing, often forgoing any architectural input or relying on in house designers. Furthermore, the prevalence of personal technology has resulted in the social isolation and residents and the decline of the shared spaces that once brought them together.

In response to these developments, we will examine the relationship between neighbors and shared spaces. We will perform design research on the typology of multi-family housing by studying our own dwellings, media depictions of neighborliness, and canonical works of architecture. We will design new models of residential living, and consider the design of interstitial space in residential construction.