Yale Bulletin and Calendar

September 6-13, 1999

Volume 28, Number 3

Open house marks completion
of student-built home

They've put away their hammers and cleaned off their paint brushes, and now students from the School of Architecture are eager to show off their work.

There will be an open house for a one-family New Haven home designed and built by architecture students at 212 Winthrop Ave., at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 9.

The house was created through Yale's Building Project, a program that is unique among architecture schools. Every spring, the first-year class designs and builds a socially useful structure in New Haven or environs. For the past four years, the students have constructed a one-family house in New Haven, commissioned by the Neighborhood Housing Services (NHS), a local nonprofit agency. The house is then sold at cost to a qualifying low-income buyer. This year's project on a vacant site at the corner of Winthrop and Judson streets, stands near houses from two previous Yale Building Projects.

"This is a remarkable testimonial to the school's commitment to the community," says School of Architecture Dean Robert A.M. Stern. "The project is also a testimonial to the art of architecture as the art of building -- not only providing unique, 'hands-on' experience, but also a meaningful opportunity for students to interact with community groups and to understand 'real world' realities."

The house has an open floor plan on the ground floor, three bedrooms and 1.5 baths. The structure fans out from a narrow corner façade to a broader rear. The rooms grow with the depth of the house, and the roof slopes down from the wide end to the narrow, echoing the shape of the site. The exterior features a pitched gable roof and two substantial side yards. The overall square footage is less than 1,500 -- far smaller than the usual house designed by an architect.

This year's Building Project construction was supported in part by the Charles Moore Fund, James Hardie Building Products, Icynnen Inc. of Canada, and American Energy Savers Company of East Haven.

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

Employees invited to attend home football games for free

Broadway-bound stores include café and national chain

The Spirit of Adventure by President Richard C. Levin

Hazards of Success by Yale College Dean Richard H. Brodhead

Study reveals target of attacks by diabetes-causing cells

New medical students given their 'cloaks of compassion'

Nursing students will take bike trek to raise money for AIDS care

In the News . . .

Architecture School invites 'leading talents' to teach

Chester Kerr, editor emeritus of the Yale University Press, dies

Guide reveals widespead interest in bioethics on campus

Yale employees invited to 'Do Downtown!'

'Titanic' discoverer to discuss undersea explorations

Reaccreditation team to visit this fall

Open house marks completion of student-built home

Campus Notes