Studio 1B - First Year M. Arch - Instructors: Brian Price, Antje Steinmuller

In the West, particularly in America, it is not all that uncommon to find that elders and foster youth fall through the cracks, and either through neglect, abandonment or outright abuse, get lost in the system and rarely have trusted allies to turn to. I’m proposing a communal housing scenario in which these two marginalized groups can help support each other socially, emotionally and even, at times, physically.

Through an adaptation of Sanaa’s Okurayama Apartments unique approach to the enfilade typology, I am aiming to support those bonds between elder and foster youth through vertical connections, line of sight and sound. The enfilade’s non-hierarchical paths of circulation are wrapped around three dispersed light wells that open up onto a courtyard below, which acts as a blurred transition zone between the ‘outside’ public shared space and the ‘inside’ household shared space.