TULSA AFFORDABLE HOUSING PROTOTYPE

Winter 2024

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The average American downtown is burdened more by parking regulations than nearly any other restrictive measure. Of all cities with over 500,000 residents in the United States, the median downtown has 26% of all usable land dedicated towards surface parking. In sun belt cities, this percentage increases, where the need for dense affordable housing is also desperately urgent. As the climate crises seems to parallel the growth of population in cities specifically badly designed for handling it, architectural solutions that add beautiful, generous housing, as well as urban amenities such as shade, public businesses, and pedestrian focused zones are necessary. 

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Using Tulsa, OK as a case study, this housing proposal is a push to reimagine and challenge parking and zoning regulations, while only taking up a quarter of a city block. Typical one and two bed apartment units stack on each other with a central demising wall that zig zags to create units with a compression and release on either end of the space. These knuckles are bathrooms and storage spaces, and serve as a buffer geometry to increase a formal dynamic of the space while still being practical and affordable. The circular geometry that finds itself through various moments of the project serves as a formal break to the relentlessness that is often seen in capitol-focused affordable projects, but the structural CMU system allows for these formal moves to be made. Importantly, every unit receives an outdoor balcony to limit the strong sunlight that enters into a building during summers, saving energy costs and providing private access to outdoors.

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