HOUSING FOR A TWO-FACED CITY

SPRING 2019 IN COLLABORATION WITH
JEREMY BENSON & DIXI WU

Union Square in Somerville, Massachusetts is filled with a rich inventory of small businesses, many of which cater to a range of international foods.  Although many shop owners work in the area, they live elsewhere - thus, the diverse image of the neighborhood is not a true representation of its residents.

This housing complex fixates on honoring and further integrating the local small business owner into the city by allowing them to live where they work.  Sensitive to the need for a perceptible separation between work and home life, the project proposes micro-communities of shop-owners and their fellow neighbors away from the public face.  We sought to introduce a new housing type that engages with the familiar, hybridizing Somerville's residential vernacular with international typologies of the Barcelona Cerdà block and the southeast Asian shophouse as precedents.

The complex hopes to enrich the neighborhood through diversification of its residents, as well as to uphold the high-functioning local economy of the neighborhood which quite significantly relies on these small businesses.