The Incremental House

This thesis submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture in the School of Architecture and Interior Design of the College of Design, Architecture, Art, & Planning by Paul Neidhard

Thesis Chair: Vincent Sansalone Second Chair: Ed Mitchell ii iii

Abstract Houses are one of the most paradoxical structures; they are conceived as unchangeable but are often changed. This is done because houses are expected to meet our needs as homeowners and consumers. But houses are often underutilized, and their primary function as a utility for living has been altered drastically so that they have become status symbols, glorified storage units, and symbols of what we want to be.

Through an understanding of the way houses are utilized and an analysis of prototypical houses, this thesis seeks to define a new way of living and building a house. It seeks to understand the way people live in and use their homes. In an effort to combat continuously changing demands and expectations for ever more and better in homes, it seeks to define an approach to building a house incrementally, through construction, changes in the way we live, or modification. This creates a home that becomes adaptable, accessible, and economically and socially responsible.

This thesis proposes a strategy for building houses incrementally and develops two narratives for how this could unfold. These narratives are exercises in behavioral architecture; they are not the ideal home but they respond to the habits and pitfalls of their users. iv v

Copyright - Paul Neidhard 2019 vi vii

Table of Contents Abstract ii Table of Contents vi

Introduction 1

Home 4 The Rooms 6 The Reality 12 The Reinterpreting 16

Critique 54 Hejduk 55 Wexler 57 Zittel 59

Project 62 Proposal 66 Urban 67 Rural 68

Bibliography 71 Illustrations 72 1 2

Introduction Buildings are often conceived as unchangeable but are often being changed. Houses are the epitome of this paradox. They are our home, our shelter. They often serve people before us and after us; this gives them permanence. But houses are expected to change and respond to our desires and tastes. They are constantly being changed over time, here and there or all at once. Houses end up trying to fulfill every whim of a possible homeowner rather than being intentional or flexible.

In America, the average size of a family is decreasing, currently it is just over 2.5 people. Meanwhile the average size of a house is increasing, currently the average new-built home is over 2,600 square feet.1 This means that any family member has about 1,000 SF to themselves. In 1973 each person had roughly 500 SF to themselves.2 This divergence is a result of a number of cultural and economic shifts that took place during and after the postwar economic boom that changed the way Americans live.

Starting in the 60s, a number of changes happened that were both cultural and economic. Culturally, more and more women began working. Meanwhile the country became more consumerist, leading to more things filling the house. This drove a change in what fills a house and how it is occupied.3

Additionally, the dream of owning a home has become increasingly that; a dream. Costs of homes have increased because builders ignore changes in market demands, knowing that it is easier to wait out a shifting market then to adapt to it.4

To combat the issues presented in a traditional housing market, this thesis proposes an incrementally-built single-family home. By building as needed, houses will provide enough space but no more than is necessary. Additionally, it allows the user more financial flexibility by not forcing them to immediately pay for space that is unnecessary.

1. US Census Bureau. “Characteristics of New Housing.” Census Bureau QuickFacts. August 23, 2011. Accessed October 10, 2018. https://www.census.gov/construction/chars/highlights.html. 2. Ibid 3. Rybczynski, Witold. “Living Smaller.” The Atlantic, February 1991. Accessed October 15, 2018. https://www. theatlantic. com/magazine/archive/1991/02/living-smaller/306205/. 4. NTF HOME 5 6

During the post war boom, necessity drove homes to be built rapidly and The Rooms consistently. William Levitt became the most successful developer of this. Levittowns utilized a handful of plans and built consistent, bare-bones homes. They were 750 sf each, with two bedrooms and a bathroom.5 Some had space for expansion, none had basements. They were a starting point.

What followed was growth. Economic prosperity allowed people to regain the space they had been living without. The number and sizes of rooms increased throughout the sixties and seventies. Technological changes and consumerism led to an increase in the number of appliances in kitchens, making them larger and necessitating more counter space.6 One bathroom was no longer enough for a family and thus the number of bathrooms began increasing and powder rooms became commonplace.7

Along with shear growth, there were numerous societal changes that affected the way we utilize the space in homes leading to a further increase in size. A number of rooms have become commonplace in homes that serve effectively the same purpose as rooms that already existed, such as family rooms with formal living rooms. Rooms like the dining room, that were once used on a daily basis, are now used once or twice a year.8 Still, other rooms serve a positive psychological service to the occupant.9

5. Rybczynski, Witold. “Living Smaller.” 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Arnold, Jeanne E., Anthony P. Graesch, Enzo Ragazzini, and Elinor Ochs. Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century: 32 Families Open Their Doors. Los Angeles, CA: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2012. 61. 9. Ibid. 109. 7 8

GARAGE

From 1971 to 2017 the percentage of homes with a two-car garage has increased from 39% to 65%. 3-car garages were not even recorded by the Census Bureau until 1992 and now make up 20% of the garages in new homes. The number of homes with no form of garage or carport has gone from 26% to 7%.

All of the garage space, despite the fact that cars are no longer kept in 75% of garages. They have been allotted for storage space.

Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century Center on Everyday Lives of Families As rooms proliferated, their uses became more specific, but they were ultimately This affects the kitchen and dining rooms specifically;dining rooms are almost the same: spaces for living. Houses often had a formal living room but in a never used and have been rendered functionally obsolete.12 They are often desire for informality, family rooms took hold, eventually supported by rec only used for special occasions like holiday dinners but for the other 360 days a rooms, tv rooms, play rooms, and so on.10 These rooms, in essence, all provide year, they sit empty. Even though it would make sense to eliminate the dining a place for people to spend time doing some form of an activity; gathering, function and re-purpose it for something more beneficial, it is often kept as a watching tv, playing ping-pong, etc. This proliferation of rooms speaks to the dining room and sits unused as a relic. privatization of family life and the desire for leisure to happen at home when possible. Kitchens have also felt the effects of these societal changes. While many families may not use the kitchen for cooking or preparing meals, they have Perhaps the event that had a greater effect on the way we live in our homes become the command centers of the home, effectively serving as a place for was when women began to work in the 60s. For many, this meant that meals gathering, conversing, working, and occasionally cooking.13 Kitchens have were now prepared or eaten outside of the home. For others it meant that the increased in size in newer homes because of these recent changes in use but nightly ritual of preparing and eating a meal together was abbreviated if not also because kitchens are seen as reflective of the quality of the home and have eliminated.11 become driving factors in their value.

10. Rybczynski, Witold. “Living Smaller.” 12. Arnold, Jeanne E et.al. Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century. 61. 11. Ibid 13. Ibid. 81. 9 10

Another major factor in the value of a home is the master bedroom. The master bedroom has become a sanctuary. It is often one of the largest rooms in a house - complete with its own bathroom with tub and shower, and walk- in closet. These rooms are seldom used more than standard bedrooms and bathrooms, and rarely during waking hours.14 However, these spaces are often kept clean and organized which suggests that these spaces hold some sort of positive psychological significance to the occupant of the house.15 They have become a sanctuary.

The amount of space that we devote tostorage has also increased drastically. In many ways the modern house has become a repository for stuff. One of the immediate identifiers of an older home is its perceived lack of storage space, but one of the most defining characteristics of the late 20th and 21st centuries was the increase in consumerism. Americans buy a lot of stuff and they need a place to put it. As a result, houses often become storage rooms or curio cabinets. They either become overwhelmed by the quantity of things contained within them or they serve the primary purpose of displaying the objects within.

The greatest signifier of this change is thegarage . Between 1971 and 2017 the percentage of homes with two-car garages has increased from 39% to 65%.16 Homes with no garage or carport only comprise 6% of newly constructed homes, meanwhile three-car garages make up 20%17 - this despite not being recorded by the Census Bureau until 1992. While garage spaces are multiplying exponentially, they are seldom being used for cars; a study from California found that 75% of garage space was used for overflow storage space, not cars.18

14. Arnold, Jeanne E et.al. Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century. 109. 15 Ibid. 109. 16. US Census Bureau. “Characteristics of New Housing.” 17. Ibid 18. Arnold, Jeanne E et.al. Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century. 44. 11 12

For many, a home is not just a place to live, but it is a major financial asset. The The Reality American dream is rooted in the idea of owning a home. It is an investment for most, a place to park extra money for others. Because of this, there is a huge concern with resale value. Unlike most commodities however, houses tend not to depreciate with age.

Many Americans strive to one day own a home, however with the increased size and number of amenities in many homes, this is becoming more and more difficult. In most markets, if the commodity becomes more expensive the consumer has the option to downgrade or buy something that has been used previously. However, in the housing market, prices are determined more by location and the general health of the market than any other factor. As a result, buying an older house does not have a financial benefit when compared to buying a new house. Home builders seldom respond to changes in demand. Large home building companies are often diversified enough that should demand slow they can focus their efforts to different sectors of their business rather than match their product to the current demand.19

While housing stock does not match demand, banks and loan providers have made it easier for borrowers to get financing, this was the case during the 1980s and early 2000s leading up to the financial crisis. Into the 1980s, the rule of

19. NTF 13 14

thumb for potential borrowers was that no more than 25% of their after-tax income should be spent on mortgage payments, but this began to creep into the 30% region and even 40%.20 In the early 2000s lenders were being blatantly irresponsible and were doling out sub-prime mortgages. It was not enough that many borrowers should not have been approved for mortgages, but they were being given loans for houses that they simply could not afford.

20. Rybczynski, Witold. “Living Smaller.” 15 16

The following precedent analysis looks at a number of notable houses. The The Reinterpreting houses were chosen because they exemplify a new idea in American housing, or because their assembly process is representative of the idea of incremental building. The houses are wide-ranging in heir conceptual ideas, but for the most part, they were designed in response to a demand for housing. They touch on a number of ideas including assembly methodologies and notions of what a typical house is.

The houses were analyzed using similar criteria. They were examined in plan and section to understand spatial arrangements, adjacencies, hierarchies, uses, and assembly processes. 17 18

The Eames house, or Case Study House 8 was designed by Ray and Charles Eames House Eames as part of the Case Study House program. The Eameses were concerned with maximizing the volume of space at a low cost.21 They used entirely off-the- shelf parts to build a home, from the structural members to the interior finishes. There are two buildings; a two-story house and a two-story studio connected by a central courtyard.

The primary goal for the Eameses was to build the most voluminous space for the least amount of money. They achieved this by using parts that were purchased from catalogs or directly from industrial manufacturers, this included the steel beams and trusses that made up the frame of the house, and the various siding that infilled the structure.22 The siding comprises many colors and materials in a pattern similar to Mondrian and included panels made of glass, asbestos, and Cemesto board. This was seen as a way of expressing personality on a design that is so strict.

21. Smith, Elizabeth, Peter Gössel, and Julius Schulman. Case Study Houses: The Complete CSH Program 1945- 1966. New York, NY: Taschen, 2002. 88-89. 22. Bergdoll, Barry, and Peter Christensen. Home Delivery 94. 19 20 21 22

Kieran Timberlake’s Loblolly House is a built prototype that tests the firm’s Loblolly House ideas about the design-build process. It is significant for three core reasons; its organization of building components, its standardization of building materials, and that it is a manifestation of the firm’s idea about assembly rather than construction.

The Loblolly House was a prototype for a prefabricated and componentized assembly process. The house is designed in a way that each piece falls into the categories of scaffold, cartridge, and block. Scaffold is a structure that is built initially and infilled with cartridges which are primarily floors, walls, and roofs, and blocks, which are condensed areas for systems, including HVAC and plumbing.23

The house’s use of standardized building components is especially relevant in the scaffold, which is comprised of aluminum extrusions tied together in a grid. The aluminum components are typical profile extrusions. Each profile has a T channel for fastening. These extrusions were selected because they are standard patterns and are highly available. As a result of this standardization, the connections between pieces were also simplified. There are three primary connectors, the standard L-shaped connector, the diagonal bracing connector, and a Z-shaped connector that joins the scaffold to cartridges.24

23. Kieran, Stephen, and James Timberlake. Loblolly House: Elements of a New Architecture. 103-104. 24. Ibid. 67-79. 23 24

Possibly the most significant aspect of the Loblolly House is that it was designed in such a way that it could be assembled rather than constructed. This was an idea that Kieran and Timberlake initially propose inRefabricating Architecture in 2004. The Loblolly House is important because its design allows for cartridges and blocks to be built and attached to the scaffold, allowing for assembly rather than construction. KTA argues that unlike construction, assembly is fast, requires only rudimentary skill, and depends on factory- controlled cutting, pre-fitting, and jigging which allows for field fabrication.25 All of this so that the house can be assembled rather than constructed. Conversely, it could also be disassembled rather than deconstructed, and the parts can be reused rather than destroyed during the deconstruction process.

25. Kieran, Stephen, and James Timberlake. Loblolly House: Elements of a New Architecture. 43-51. 25 26

Espansiva was an experimental housing system developed by Jorn Utzon. Espansiva The intent was that the system could be designed to offer the client complete freedom of choice for planning, expanding, or altering their building. The prefabricated components could be combined to produce the needed spaces in a single-story configuration. The system consisted of a primary structural component with secondary infill components.26

The Espansiva System utilized pods consisting of prefabricated components that could be attached or detached from one another. The components included two primary timber frames connected by a preformed concrete floor and a ceiling structure. There was a considerable amount of structural redundancy because each pod had two primary wood frames. This meant that the houses had massive wooden structures that were unnecessary for the uses of the buildings.27

Despite the structural redundancy, the repetition of the pods offered a unified architectural expression. This unified expression lent itself to the potential for larger housing complexes, or institutional uses such as assembly spaces or schools.

26. Andersen, Michael Asgaard. Jørn Utzon: Drawings and Buildings. 166. 27. Ibid. 167. 27 28 29 30

Jean Prouvé developed the Demountable houses as modest shelter building for Demountable House the French army. Based around a one-meter grid, the houses were usually in a six-by-six or a six-by-nine configuration. The houses were designed to be easily and quickly assembled or disassembled, this was accomplished by simplifying the process.28

The building is based around a single primary structural component in the center, the roof structure is suspended from this primary structure as well as two of the four exterior walls. Once those were in place, the remaining walls are put into place and then the roof laid on top of them. The Demountable house eliminates all unnecessary parts, this results in a house that is not completely stable until all components are in place.29

The early homes provide a way of living that is accepted as standard for most people; a mix of formal and informal, public and private. The houses are certainly minimal, but this a resultant of their assembly.

28. LUMA Foundation, comp. Jean Prouvé: Architect for Better Days. 30. 29. Ibid. 46. 31 32 33 34

The Sears Modern Home Program existed from 1908 until 1940. In 1908 the Sears Roebuck Houses Sears catalog was subscribed to by one in five Americans. The idea behind the Modern Home Program was simple; you pick the house style you like, order it, and it shows up-flat packed-on a train car. It could be assembled by professionals or by anyone with rudimentary skills. The Sears catalog sold everything you would need for a home, so the idea was that consumers could buy a house and then buy all of the “necessary” stuff to fill it up.

The lumber for the houses was pre-cut and framed up at Sears factories and all of the pieces were put in train cars to be shipped to the owner. The houses were prefabricated in the sense that the framing had been pre-cut and pre-assembled, but the home still required a considerable amount of assembly once delivered. It arrived with all the necessary parts, but it still required that the pre-framed walls be assembled, all plumbing, electrical, mechanical components be installed, and the finishes installed.30

30. Bergdoll, Barry, and Peter Christensen. Home Delivery 48. 35 36

The Sears Roebuck houses were extremely popular. This is in part due to the variety of styles offered. Sears advertised styles ranging from Cape Cods to Mission with every geographic typology in between, but the interiors of these houses were often very similar. No matter the style, the houses often had all of the staples of a traditional home, a kitchen, a living room, often a dining room, bedrooms, and a bathroom.

Two of the most popular models were the Westly and the Langston. Both houses were two stories, with the public functions on the first floor including the living and dining rooms and the kitchen. The private functions were on the second floor, including the bedrooms and bathroom. The houses are very simple, reminiscent Le Corbusier’s Dom-Ino house with their rectilinear floor plates connected by a single stair. 37 38

Like the Sears houses, the Levitt houses were also easily reproducible. This is Levitt Houses not a result of massive house making factories, but rather because the houses were identical. Rather than being prefabricated and sent to buyers the houses were part of massive housing developments and were marketed to GIs after World War II as an affordable option.

Levitt houses were extremely modest. The most common model was the Cape Cod. It was a single story, 750 sf house. It had two bedrooms, one bathroom, a small kitchen, and a living space. There was no basement, rather the house set on a 25’ x 30’ concrete pad.31 The home came with an unfinished second floor which could be finished and used for additional space - often, it was used to add two more bedrooms to the home. While the houses were not innovative in their design, they redefined what a typical, middle class house needed. They maximize their available space by eliminating unnecessary spaces such as hallways or rooms that were not absolutely necessary such as dining rooms. Rather, they combined all the living functions into one main room and centralized the circulation in order to minimize space used solely for movement. Levitt houses maximize the livable space by minimizing utility space, the heater for the home was compact and often incorporated into the kitchen.

31. Rybczynski, Witold. “Living Smaller.” 39 40 41 42

The Jacobs house was the first of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian houses. It was Jacobs House 1 built with a budget of $5,000 in 193732 or roughly $90,000 in 2018. The Jacobses needed a modest home for their growing family. Frank Lloyd Wright had always been interested in designing homes for middle class Americans, so he was happy to take the challenge. The Jacobs house is designed for its user and functionality not as a status symbol.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s goal was to make a house that was modest but well designed and crafted. He used a number of cost-saving measures to keep the house within budget. The house is designed using a 2ft by 4-foot grid. All of the rooms and walls are based on this grid. One of the signatures of a Wright house is the expression of materiality, the Jacobs house is no different. Wright used primarily brick and wood, he opposed finishes such as plaster or paint because he felt that they covered up the true nature of the building.33 He also used the number of innovative cost-saving measures that are now common in American houses including what is considered the first carport and a lighting system that became the precursor to track lighting. Wright designed a sandwich board system for many of the interior partition walls. It stacked linear pieces of wood, similar to tongue and groove flooring that slots together.34 In one of his more notorious cost-saving techniques, Wright had his Taliesin fellows steal bricks from the Johnson Wax Building that was under construction nearby.

32. Bergdoll, Barry, and Peter Christensen. Home Delivery. 72. 33. Sergeant, John. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian Houses: The Case for Organic Architecture. New York, NY: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1976. 12. 34. Ibid. 19. 43 44

Although modest, the house has a number of innovative design features. The house is an L shape with one wing being private bedroom and office space, and the other being public living space. Their connection point acts as a hub including the kitchen, bathroom, and carport. Like many Wright designs, the Jacobs house has an open-concept in the public spaces. The functions of space are defined by their ceiling heights; the bedrooms have the lowest ceiling, the living space is slightly higher, and the workspace is the highest. Wright believed in nature, he used is as another way of maximizing space in the Jacobs house. While the space was small, it opened out to nature, with expansive walls of glass and doors, allowing users to bring the outside in.

Wright was also known for designing not just the home but the lifestyle of the occupants. Again, the Jacobs house is no exception. Wright wanted the occupants of his houses to discard rather than store excess stuff, he was ahead of his time in this regard. He encouraged this by minimizing available storage space, this is most notable with the use of the carport rather than the garage, Wright was creating a shelter for cars but nothing more. 45 46

The Bailey house, or Case Study House 20 was designed by Richard Neutra for Bailey House the Case Study House Program. It is a modest, two-bedroom home design for a young family with the intention that it could be added onto in the future, which it eventually was.

Like many of Neutra’s other houses, the Bailey house “borrows” space from nature.35 It does this with its use of expansive, sliding glass walls. Like the Jacobs and Eames houses, the Bailey house utilizes an open plan in the public spaces, but unlike the houses it separates the kitchen from the living and dining spaces. Neutra still manages to embrace its function by putting it at the front of the house and putting a door directly from the kitchen to the driveway. In a sense, this makes the kitchen the primary entrance for the family.

35. Smith, Elizabeth, et.al. Case Study Houses. 184. 47 48 49 50

Walter Segal’s Self-Build homes were, and remain to this day, simple structures. Segal Self-Build The Segal method uses timber framing strategies, primarily balloon framing to Houses create simple, easily assembled structures.36 Because of Segal’s common-sense nature, he was concerned with minimizing waste and the re-sale of materials should they not be needed in the future, so the houses are designed using standard dimensions, minimizing cut-offs.

The houses were built on simple pile foundations at whatever ground level already existed, rather than traditional foundation walls with footers. Doing this allowed the posts to be cut to whatever height was needed, but also minimized the equipment needed to build the foundation. The homes were laid out using simple grids that could define the size of spaces and allowed Segal to work with the homeowners to find the optimal plan for their needs, allows for flexibility in the future, and eliminates the need to trim sheet materials for the horizontal elements.

36. MacKean, John. Learning from Segal: Walter Segal’s Life, Work, and Influence. Boston, MA: Birkhauser Verlag, 1988. 138-149. 51 52

The walls were a sandwich system. Wall panels were created that sandwiched all of the internal layers and are sandwiched at the joints by infill panels that are connected to the structural frame. The internal layers usually consisted of woodwool, and insulation and the exterior was traditionally fiber cement panels with an enamel finish.37 The interior was comprised of uncut sheets of gypsum wall board to which additional layers could be added such as waterproofing in a bathroom. The Segal method eliminates the need for wet trades including bricklaying and plastering. In line with his common-sense principles, Segal designed minimal details like not including risers in the stairs, simply treads connected by vertical components.

37. MacKean, John. Learning from Segal: Walter Segal’s Life, Work, and Influence. 138-149. Neidhard 53

CRITIQUE 55 56

John Hejduk’s work focuses around a non-idyllic view of humanity. His Hejduk “Architecture of Pessimism” explores the darker side of humanity rather than the ideal life that was being designed for by most architects. He felt that everything that was being designed at the time was too optimistic,

“Schools. Hospitals. Sunlight everywhere. Boundaries open up. Privacy was at a minimum. No Bedrooms. No kitchens. Open space. No need to have privacy, because this was a very utopian, light filled, optimistic view of the future.”38

His work highlights human behaviors rather than solving problems. He took these points of view because he needed to create some sort of equilibrium in architectural discourse.

The House for the Inhabitant Who Refused to Participate is the manifestation of an Architecture of Pessimism and is quintessential of Hejduk’s reductionism. While sited in Venice, it is uniquely American in its acceptance of isolation.39 Each human need has been reduced to a minimum and is contained within an individual room. The rooms are arranged along a wall that acts as a threshold between the rooms and the corridor. Traveling from one function to another requires exiting a cell, passing through the wall, traveling through the corridor, and re-entering another cell.

The House for the Inhabitant Who Refused to Participate is one of Hejduk’s narrative houses. He established a fictional inhabitant -the Inhabitant Who Refused to Participate - and designs a house that responds to their circumstances.

38. Hejduk, John. Mask of Medusa. New York, NY: Rizzoli, 1985. 63. 39. Ibid. 63. 57 58

Allan Wexler is an architect whose work focuses on the objects of everyday Wexler life rather than the construction of buildings. His work examines the effects of space on human ritual and the effects of human ritual on space. The work encompasses a series of scales ranging from objects, to furniture and wearable constructs, to full spaces. For these, he restructures everyday objects in ways that accentuate their functions and force the user to reconsider habits that are often accepted without question.

Crate House (1990) was a work Wexler created in response to the question ‘What will architecture become in the next decade?’ In response to the overabundance of the 1980s, Crate House suggests a life with less. Wexler reduces the functions of a house into four spaces, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and living room. Each room is contained within a crate on wheels. The crate serves as both a utilitarian storage container and a display for the necessary objects of life. Crate House is a response to Le Corbusier’s concept of the house as a machine for living, it is a “non-functional look at function.”40

40. Wexler, Allan, Ashley Simone, and Ellen Wexler. Absurd Thinking: Between Art and Design. Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers, 2017. 174. 59 60

Andrea Zittel creates works that question and enable our everyday routines. Zittel Her work often extends into her life as she creates objects that facilitate living and enable routines that she creates. She developed a series of principles that inform the work she creates. These principles revolve around the idea that rules inspire creativity.

|| The creation of rules is more creative than the destruction of them || || Things that we think are liberating can ultimately become restrictive || || Things that we initially think are controlling can sometimes give us a sense of comfort and security41 ||

A-Z Management and Maintenance Unit and A-Z Living Unit were early attempts at streamlining living functions. They are compact units designed to exist within a larger space. They consolidate the everyday activities of eating, sleeping, socializing, and working into a single construct.42 Zittel’s principles are at play with the freedom to reposition, manipulate, and transport that comes from the restrictiveness of the paired down structures.

41. “Andrea Zittel.” Interview by Alix Browne and Andrea Zittel. Apartmento, Autumn 2016, 36-71. 42. Morsiani, Paola, Trevor Smith, and Andrea Zittel. Andrea Zittel - Critical Space. Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2005. 128. 61 62

PROJECT 63 64

Houses have become too complicated. They have become repositories for our stuff. They are designed to anticipate every possible desire someone could have, rather than being usable. Rather than completely redesigning a new approach to building a house, this thesis seeks to understand how we live and the ways in which that can change. Rather than designing and anticipating the way someone will live within a structure this project proposes a new way of relating to, and utilizing, the house: creating modules for living that address the specific needs of a household. The proposal separates each component of a house and makes it a stand-alone element. Doing so simplifies the way people live by making them more cognizant of their routines, actions, and relationships to space. In the same way that building a room at a time would present someone with the actual cost of each space, breaking down a house further into each element would present a value proposition for that element.

In an era where bigger is better and where there is a formula for a house that buyers are looking for, consolidating it to its essential elements will feel like a compromise. But it is simply a return to what was. Consumers have expectations of what a house should have but those expectations are often beyond reach. Pairing a house down to its essential components will provide a way of identifying those desires and expectations. It is not a compromise but rather a change in the way we live, by reconsidering every decision and focusing energy not on consuming but rather on living. If the primary goal in home-ownership is no longer growth - the cycle of buying “starter homes” then up-sizing, then downsizing – the house becomes a tool that provides both restriction and a sense of liberation to its users. 66

This thesis explores the possibilities of incrementally built houses. It proposes Proposal a system for incrementally assembling a house using prefabricated modules within a lightweight framework.

The houses are based around a two-bay, structural-framework that defines the building module. In the simplest sense there is a vertical arrangement for the urban conditions, and a horizontal arrangement for rural conditions. Inserted within the framework are living modules; Primary and Auxiliary. The Primary Modules are defined by use; living, eating, sleeping, bathing etc. The Auxiliary Modules serve as circulation and storage spaces.

Similarly to the critiques presented, the Incremental Houses force the user to question how they use their house. The rooms are small and their functions are unequivocal. By separating each function users become highly aware of the ways in which they occupy and use space. In this effect the home becomes a machine for living rather than simply a repository of our possessions. By making the user cognizant of their habits they will regularly evaluate their needs for space and possessions.

The houses begin as a simple, lightweight framework that can be quickly assembled. From there, the prefabricated Living Modules can be inserted into place with a crane. The modules have simple hookups to provide for mechanical, electrical, and plumbing but the intent is that major functions like cooking and bathing would be part of the core units and would not need to be added or removed. Modules can be added and removed and thus re-used or sold. This creates a gray market for the pieces of houses which would reduce the cost of building over time.

For this thesis, two scenarios were developed, one urban and one rural. A narrative was created for each condition that informs their design. The Urban house is sited on Baymiller Street in the West End of Cincinnati. The Rural house is on Shawhan Road outside of South Lebanon, Ohio. 67 68

The Urban House grows vertically. It begins as a two-story structure with two Urban Auxiliary Modules and four Primary Modules, the kitchen and living room are on the first level and the bedroom and bathroom are on the second level. The Urban house can be filled out with other modules both horizontally and vertically, as necessary.

This approach can be employed in neighborhoods to create density. It will also allow neighborhoods to become more diverse. The cyclical nature of a neighborhood will be diminished. Residents can stay in one location for longer periods of time because their houses become more adaptable. The income threshold required to live in a neighborhood will be eliminated because each house is unique to the owner. Rather than having a neighborhood comprised of homes that are roughly the same size and intended for families that are in a similar age range, the neighborhood will be able to house families at all points in their time-lines, from first-time homeowners, to retirees, and everyone in between. The cyclical nature of neighborhoods’ wellbeing will disappear because it will comprise groups of people in every stage of homeownership.

The Urban house is designed for a couple that builds the base house in the early days of their relationship. Over time they will have two children, a dog, and maybe a cat, the house will grow with them. Eventually both of their children will leave the house, at which point they will consider how to shrink the house to make it work for their future. 69 70

The Rural house grow horizontally. It begins as a one-story structure with one Rural Auxiliary Module and three Primary modules, the kitchen, bathroom, and a combined living and sleeping area. To expand the home, a new Auxiliary Module is attached to the existing and from that new Primary Modules can be inserted.

The Rural house is not intended as a tool for densification, nor is it intended as the next suburban home development model. It is intended as an affordable and adaptable housing option.

The Rural house is designed for a single male. A bit of a loner, his children only stay with him occasionally. He starts out living very minimally in his house but time necessitates growth so that his children can stay with him on occasion but also when unfortunate circumstances put him on the receiving end of a loved-one’s estate. 71 72

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