Small Lots
housing competition
New York City, Harlem, 2019

Light, air, and more-than-human living environments are a human basic need, not a privilege. The distribution of the modular-type units provides a varied interior common space that brings natural light and ventilation into the interior, as well as fosters community and shared responsibility. Each unit has access to outdoor space and personal gardening areas to tackle the constraints of a very tight and potentially dark lot. The split-level strategy avoids excessive hallways and partitions and provides interlocking units with the collective space in-between, with outdoor gardened spaces as integrally designed into the unit’s spatiality. The project also embraces the realities of climate change and increased flood risk in New York City, by elevating the habitable spaces from grade and providing a sponge-basement below grade to help water dissipate when flooding occurs.

PROJECT DATA
Design: Eva Perez de Vega + Ian Gordon
Client: City of New York, Housing Development