Housing Cards — eOsorno

2023–
Design Research and Teaching Fellow
Northeastern University, School of Architecture
Student Team: Kevin Alloway, Avery Gilloren, Theo Kypreos, Michaela Maloney, Didi Onwubueke, Gabriela Palacios, Quinn Plante, Jenna Schor, Akshit Sethi, Ravyn Smith

30 Housing Projects constitute a range of models for addressing the housing affordability crisis. Chosen for their level of speculation and innovation in the domestic realm, these projects are sourced from all continents to provide a glimpse into the image of housing in different geographic regions and cultures.
Ranging from low-cost interventions to large multi-unit complexes, the collection provides an analytical view of housing across scales, typologies, and ownership structures to facilitate comparisons among them. Each project is depicted in terms of its image and its building block: its façade is drawn in perspectival projection, alluding to our perception of place; while its unit floor plans, in orthographic projection, showcase lived conditions via spatial organization and the interrelationship between units.
The projects have been carefully redrawn, measured, and catalogued; yielding six index values that serve as the basis for comparison among the projects. The values are shown diagrammatically as bar graphs and polygonal plots to allow for easy sorting the cards in any way the user sees fit. Architecture students can use the cards to facilitate the selection of precedents that align with their vision for housing interventions. The public, on the other hand, can use the cards as a didactic tool for learning about different approaches to housing across geographic regions, cultures, scales, and forms of inhabitation.

Download the cards here

If you would like to participate and add to the collection, download the templates here