Envisioning a new residential typology to foster the makers for the contemporary urban economies

Housing, Incorporated is a community for makers.

It recalls the neighborhood’s former life as the ‘Piano District,’ where manufacturing was at the heart of the area’s architectural and cultural identity, by re-integrating manufacturing into the heart of the collective living space. It also acknowledges the significance of block parties in shaping the South Bronx’s legacy as the birthplace of hip-hop and attempts to recreate the spatial and atmospheric conditions necessary for the impromptu exchange of culture, music, the arts, and lived experiences.

This project posits that the symbiosis of blue-collar ‘material makers’ and white-collar ‘knowledge makers’ at both the formal place of work and at the informal place of living are opportunities to foster reciprocal teaching and learning, to reignite the neighborhood as a place of production that can benefit the community as opposed to down-steam consumers, and to amplify serendipitous ideation, creation, and collaboration.