School Notes: School of Architecture
July/August 2013

Building project moves to new site

First-year students at the School of Architecture design and build a structure as part of their education, through the Vlock Building Project. They design independently, then in teams, and finally in a studio-wide collaboration to solve the formal, spatial, and technical problems of building affordably, efficiently, and with environmental sensitivity. Then they actually construct the house. This year’s brief called for a 1,500-square-foot, three-bedroom, single-family house on a narrow “sliver” lot in Newhallville. Students were challenged to develop a flexible prototype that could be adapted to similar sites, which are scattered around New Haven.

The project was barely under way when the university decided that the original location was unsafe, and a new site was found in the West River neighborhood, with help from the City of New Haven, working with Adam Hopfner ’99MArch, director of the building project. The house is currently under construction on Greenwood Street, with the cooperation of Neighborhood Housing Services, a not-for-profit developer in low-income New Haven neighborhoods. 

While the new foundation was being prepared, students had an opportunity to rethink the project and prefabricate many components. Using a warehouse on West Campus, students reconfigured the design to conform to the size of the new (but still very narrow) lot, built exterior walls, cut roof rafters and floor joists, and created a sophisticated three-dimensional model. Despite the initial delay, Hopfner anticipates finishing the project by the end of the summer and holding a dedication open house in the fall.

New graduate wins Fulbright

Ashley Bigham ’13MArch has won a Fulbright fellowship to study the medieval fortified cities, castles, and forts of western Ukraine and their reuse in contemporary Ukrainian culture. After gathering information at ten sites, she will conduct research at the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe in Lviv, and will then compile all the documentation into an online database. Currently, there are very few books published in English that focus specifically on Ukrainian fortifications systems. Her work will benefit local communities in Ukraine that surround the fortifications as well as students of Ukrainian architecture, history, and culture; government officials; preservationists; and tourists.