Shear House

Yale School of Architecture
Spring 2018 Core II
Critics Peter de Bretteville and Joeb Moore
Team F Rosa Congdon, Deo Deiparine, Michael Gasper, Brenna Thompson, Megan Tan
Published Retrospecta 41

Since 1967, the Yale School of Architecture has offered its first-year M.Arch I professional degree students the unique chance to design and build a structure as part of their graduate education. The Building Project results in a dwelling in an underprivileged neighborhood. For the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year, the Yale School of Architecture has part­nered with Columbus House, a non-profit or­ga­ni­za­tion work­ing to end home­less­ness in the New Haven area. Students were tasked with cre­at­ing a cost-ef­fi­cient de­sign for a 1,000 square foot two-unit home, while ex­plor­ing meth­ods and as­sem­blies unique to tra­di­tional stick-frame and cross-lam­i­nated tim­ber con­struc­tion. 

This project hopes to create a sense of belonging to the New Haven neighborhood while fostering the autonomy of its residents. Using the central axis as a spine, the units maintain the interstitial spacing and underlying rhythm of the street. Derived from the larger context of the New Haven railroad and river, the idea of the diagonal became implemented as an internal organizational principle and underlying grid.The diagonal manifests itself as a void to establish the units’ entryways, acting as defensible space from the street and between the units.

This project hopes to create a sense of belonging to the New Haven neighborhood while fostering the autonomy of its residents. Using the central axis as a spine, the units maintain the interstitial spacing and underlying rhythm of the street. Derived from the larger context of the New Haven railroad and river, the idea of the diagonal became implemented as an internal organizational principle and underlying grid.The diagonal manifests itself as a void to establish the units’ entryways, acting as defensible space from the street and between the units.  

Derived from the larger con­text of the New Haven rail­road and river, the idea of the di­ag­o­nal be­comes im­ple­mented as an in­ter­nal or­ga­ni­za­tional prin­ci­ple and un­der­ly­ing grid. The rigid­ity of the façade is dis­man­tled in lay­ers from the street to back­yard, cre­at­ing dy­namic yet pri­vate spa­tial mo­ments for the res­i­dents.

Through the combination of cross-laminated timber and traditional stick frame construction as the primary structure, the diagonal also functions as a structural and circulatory core, driving the entry void upward.