Housing in the United States is becoming unattainable for a growing number of households including those of middle income, low income, and the very poor, affecting the housing choices families, young adults, creatives, entrepreneurs and aging populations.  Production has been unable to provide the scale of housing supply to adequately meet this demand, despite the large amounts of devalued urban land located in many urban communities where diverse housing options are desperately needed.

Additionally, how we regulate, design, finance, and build housing in our cities has been slow to adapt, innovate, and change at scale. This also affects the adaptive reuse potential of the massive supply of single-family housing in American cities, as well as the production of multi-family housing where nearly 70% of developments accommodate households of two people or less.  

Finally, for many of us, home is no longer a place solely dedicated to where we reside, but it also the place where we work, learn, create, produce (food, products, services) and find social community (virtually). A such, the design and regulation of existing residential land parcels and structures is perhaps outdated and inflexible.

Home. House. Housing. is multi-disciplinary housing studio based in two neighborhoods on the southside of Chicago that will advance radical solutions for housing regulatory, design, and production reform. These neighborhoods hold both a history of extraordinary wealth and achievements by Black Chicagoans; anchor institutions like the University of Chicago and the Obama Presidential Center; as well as a legacy of urban renewal, displacement and disinvestment.  But in recent years, the middle class, new local noprofits and creatives including Amanda Williams and Theaster Gates have invested and made these neighborhoods their place of home and production.  The core intention of the studio will be to re-examine contemporary needs and cultural-based practices of what makes a “home”, how the “house” accommodates these needs, and how the provision of “housing” should be transformed through the lens of 8-12 resident types, and explore the ways designers, creatives and residents can co-create a more diverse climate-adaptive, culturally adaptive and economically sustainable housing supply and neighborhood urban form.

Values-based learning objectives connect the pedagogy of the studio and its outputs.

Rooted in Place
• Develop land narratives, including known and lost histories and current cultural and development conditions of each neighborhood

Rooted in Personhood
• Understand of housing needs and desires through the development of household profiles

Rooted in Adaptation
• Explore reforms for economic, cultural and climate reparative and adaptive land use, zoning and building codes; neighborhood identity, density and urban form; site plan and plan development; materiality and sustainability; fabrication and construction technologies

The studio will be open to architecture, urban planning, and urban design students with the goal of producing a comprehensive neighborhood plan, land use, zoning and building codes, and model home and housing designs.

The studio outputs will include:
• Architectural designs for different housing typologies
• Urban design plans neighborhood 
• Urban planning land use, zoning and development regulatory reforms
• Studio publication/catalogue of proposed design and regulatory housing and people and place narratives
 

Note regarding the Fall 2025 GSD academic calendar: The first day of classes, Tuesday, September 2nd, is held as a MONDAY schedule at the GSD. This studio will meet for the first time on Wednesday, September 3^rd.