Breaking the Habit: A Fight Against the Monotony of Tract Housing

Abstract

This project looks at tract housing from the perspective of the homeowner. Tract housing has caused an identity crisis within neighborhoods across the nation, and it’s time we start taking a more forward approach to changing that. Many have tried and failed, but many have taken it on through the construction of a house. This project looks at the design of a house. In tract housing there are 4 steps in the process before the homeowner gets in the house. The first step, the step this project focuses on, is the design of the floor plan. In this step, designers design houses that end up in a library for the developers to pick and choose from. Next is the development step, where the developers choose their floor plans and create the neighborhood they are going to build. Following that is construction, when the houses are actually built, where others have tried to change the process and have failed. Last is to sell the house to the homeowner. By focusing on the design of the house instead of the construction of a house, we can start thinking of things in a different light. There are rooms in a house that are in every house, and with that knowledge we can create standardized spaces that we can use to assemble a house.