 | School of Architecture Dean Robert A.M. Stern (left) leads a review of this year's entries in the First-Year Building Project. |
This year students in the Yale School of Architecture's First-Year Building Project (FYBP) faced two challenges never before presented in the program's 40-year history: design a home for a disabled war veteran that meets accessibility standards, and create an attached rental unit as well.
The FYBP introduces architects-in-training to the intricacies of their chosen profession by having them design a structure and then construct it with their own hands.
For the past 27 years, the FYBP students have been building residences in local inner-city neighborhoods for nonprofit agencies serving first-time homebuyers, including Habitat for Humanity, Neighborhood Housing Services and, more recently, Common Ground. Typically, the agency sells the house at cost to a family that could not otherwise afford to buy a home.
This year's client was again Common Ground, which describes itself as the "nation's largest not-for-profit developer of supportive housing." The agency, working with the Veterans' Affairs office in West Haven, has expressly targeted female veterans for the type of two-family owner-renter residence the Yale students were asked to design.
As is traditional, the FYBP began with a competition among all first-year students at the School of Architecture to design a residence at a specific site within certain dimensions and on a modest budget. In addition to facing the usual challenges -- fitting a contemporary house into a traditional neighborhood, getting companies to donate essential materials not covered by the budget and building according to "green" and sustainable principles -- this year's students also had to create a one-level home that conformed to American Disabilities Act standards for accessible design.
Working in five teams of about 10 students, the groups presented their designs to critics, clients and neighborhood residents at the end of the term. The models were judged by such criteria as user-friendliness, suitability for the neighborhood, and elegance and economy of design.
This year's winning model, which will be built on a double lot on Kossuth Street in the Hill neighborhood of New Haven, was chosen above other contenders for its fluid design and its chameleon-like capacity to blend in unobtrusively with the rest of the block, according to Karen Rizvi, a first-year student. "It looks like it lived there,"
she says.
Adam Hopfner, who is a graduate of the Yale School of Architecture and oversees the FYBP, noted that the winning design's "sinuous plan allows for both a generous public presence and an intimate relationship with private outdoor space."
Noting that one-quarter of the nation's homeless are veterans, Hopfner says he is particularly gratified that Yale architecture students are working on a project of timely social significance. "The experience gives currency and immediacy to architecture as a way to address social issues," he says. It is hoped, he adds, that the New Haven project will serve as a prototype for similar Common Ground ventures throughout the country.
When the FYBP was created 40 years ago by Charles Moore, then dean of the School of Architecture, it was the only "reality" course combining training in construction, design and contracting. Although other schools now offer students practical opportunities, Yale's pioneering project is considered a model, and architecture students often cite the project as the reason they chose to study at Yale.
Rizvi notes that she and about half of the other members of her class did not have an architectural background before coming to Yale. Although the FYBP drew her to the School of Architecture, she says, she confesses to being somewhat intimidated by building a house. However, just working along with the other students has built her knowledge and skills, she says, marveling at how "intensely collaborative" the process has been.
All first-year architecture students will work on the new home in New Haven until the end of June, then 14 students will stay on and spend the entire summer constructing with their own hands a house they designed collectively with their classmates.
-- By Dorie Baker
T H I S
First-Year Building Program's 40th anniversary brings new challenges for architects-in-training
This year's winning design will be built by School of Architecture students on a double lot on Kossuth Street in New Haven's Hill neighborhood.
The addition of a rental apartment will not only help the new homeowner to meet monthly mortgage payments, says Hopfner, "It also provides dignified housing to a vet who might not yet be at a stage (financially, emotionally, socially) to purchase a house."
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