2017 Yale Building Project

For the first time, the Yale School of Architecture is partnering 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 move towards independence.

This year’s brief targets a 1,000 square foot house of two separate dwellings, to be located on a lot in New Haven’s Upper Hill neighborhood. Students are challenged to develop a cost-efficient, flexible design that tackles replicability in material, means, and method of construction.

During the first half of the spring semester, students work individually, each developing a prototype for the dwelling. Some of these initial schemes are selected for further development, and the class is divided into teams, each team tasked with creating a final design proposal. At the end of the semester, one project is chosen and the entire class works together to build the selected design.