suburban infill

Anthony Averbeck, Eric Barr, Joe Brookover

Ownership, equity, security, privacy - single family residences embody success and freedom in American culture. The free-standing house offers autonomy and anonymity. With its garden plots, private entry, flexible arrangements, and omni-directional daylight, this predominant typology sprawls ubiquitously across the US.

Yet current domestic spatial patterns have led to an externalization of childcare and elder-care, disrupting life cycles, and disconnecting people from community. Rising costs of housing, education, and healthcare, coupled with income stagnation, bar entry to the housing market for those who aspire for upward mobility. Rarely does the available housing stock allow buyers to choose their neighbors, or live communally within their social circles of friends and family.

Suburban Infill proposes habitation that allows families and friends to create multi-generational communities, systems of support, and shared experiences. Choosing from a catalogue of smaller house modules, empty parcels, and existing homes can be densified with both connected and detached units around communal courtyards. Modular, cost-effective pre-engineered steel construction is infilled with translucent insulated panels of recycled material, some operable for spatial flexibility. This system offers the autonomous privileges of a traditional free-standing home while also providing new shared spaces for leisure, service, and entrepreneurship.