GATE-BREAKING BROOKLINE
A hopeful attempt to introduce affordable housing in one of Massachusetts’ wealthiest towns.
ROLE: DESIGNER, RESEARCHER
FOR: NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY M.ARCH
STATUS: COMPLETED
The City of Brookline is one of the most affluent cities in Massachusetts, and a pioneer in America for wealthy gated communities and suburbia. The Fisher Hill neighborhood, located in South Brookline, has a long history of rejecting any public or affordable housing projects, despite the vacant lots and growing housing crisis in Boston. The Olmsted-designed community is in a prime location: schools, transportation, facilities, and an overall premium infrastructure.
Conceptualization of Problem vs. Real Problem.
To this, a new use has been recently added to one of the two campus lots previously occupied by Newbury College: The Newbury at Brookline Senior Living, a luxury senior residences complex that certainly serves the community well, but also begs the question: if the residential use can be incorporated at a high density for a project like the senior residences, what is stopping Brookline from accepting an affordable housing project?
The site is in the twin lot on the West side of Fisher Avenue, currently owned by the city. The project explores the limitations and familiarities of affordable housing in a city like Brookline, challenging and encouraging the city to accept it. By mimicking the low-height, low-density residential architecture of the community, the project seamlessly incorporates a series of units that break up in a masterplan of mixed uses, serving both the existing and incoming users. This includes a selection of identified intersectional needs in the proposed diverse and multi-generational community, reflected in commercial and communal facilities.
The playful take of the project disguises the introduction of residential units, while maintaining appropriate privacy levels and encouraging different interactions throughout a distributed and hierarchized public space. The project utilizes a grid to start a distribution of private and public space and follows a modular grid model to expand the public circulation into pockets that intersect with built mass, creating circle pockets for different types of socialization and relaxation. The project also fosters adaptive reuse by repurposing the old administration building in West Campus into a commercial hub on the ground level, and residences on upper floors. This way, the connection between the existing building and the new constructions is established not only on the public floor, but also among different levels.
Animation of pockets of space in the project.
Additionally, a media object is designed to create a more immersive experience and connection between the current Fisher Hill community and the problem, fostering a sense of ownership beyond the occupied space: a grasp of affordable housing as an urgent issue to be solved by all cities and neighborhoods.
Prototype of Rungs & Thorns.
Instructions book of Rungs & Thorns.
This board game, a reinterpretation of the classic games Snakes and Ladders and Monopoly, is designed as a media object to create a more immersive experience and connection between the current Fisher Hill community and the problem, fostering a sense of ownership beyond the occupied space: a grasp of affordable housing as an urgent issue to be solved by all cities and neighborhoods.
In this version, the participants race for the last affordable unit in Fisher Hill, Brookline, Massachusetts. The key to the unit is located in the last square of the board, and to reach it the participants have to move around and through the obstacles and opportunities, in the same way an applicant for affordable housing would in real life.