Alongside the made in Brownsville Studio, we have the HOUSING + studio led by Stella Betts with David Leven of LEVENBETTS. The studio’s goal is to rethink housing in terms of new relationships with radically altered physical, political, and economic environments. The students taking the studio recently had a site visit last Friday, at Hunters Point Long Island City. Here we will be interviewing two students in the studio, Geena Kribs (B.Arch ’20) and Katherine Qian (B.Arch ’20) on what they’ve been learning and making.
SS: What are some of the main themes that your studio is focused on?
GK: We’re doing a lot of precedent analysis and looking at the systems of different buildings. For example, the two of us are looking at modular units of housing, focusing specifically on the Unite D’habitation in Marseilles, France. We chose the Unite D’habitation for our case study because it is one of the most successful and well regarded by people. Almost everyone that does a housing project looks at the Unite D’habitation as a precedent.
KQ: The “plus” in Housing +. Mainly talking about what you can add to a housing project to make it function better in a community.
SS: What phase of the project are you currently working on?
GK: We’re bringing our precedent analysis into the site analysis. We’re re-configuring the Unite D’habitation in Marseilles, France to our site in Long Island City.
SS: What did you enjoy most during your site visit? Or what did you discover?
GK: We enjoyed the museums the most. We went to the Noguchi Museum and the MOMA PS1. …And the Mexican hot chocolate at Flor de Azalea Café.
KQ: I enjoyed seeing how quickly the neighborhood was changing and the different states and phases the buildings were in. It seemed very dynamic. We also saw a pop-up market selling some food and artisan items.
SS: What’s your favorite part of working on studio?
GK: All the insights form Stella Betts with David Leven.
KQ: Yeah… They have both done a lot of work and understand that, making them much more thoughtful in their approach.
GK: We also enjoyed the interesting exercises that we were assigned. For example, we got to create our own modules and aggregate that.