The project “Block by Block” seeks to design more just and desirable housing models by engaging the scale of the block.
Gabriel Cuéllar
University of Michigan
College of Architecture and Urban Planning
De Peter Yi
University of Cincinnati
College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning
A selection of blocks in Cincinnati and Detroit where the research will be rooted, demonstrating challenges and opportunities for imagining housing at the scale of the block. © Gabriel Cuéllar and De Peter Yi.
Jury
Carlos Bedoya
Iker Gil (Chair)
Johanna Hurme
Lorcan O’Herlihy
Irene Sunwoo
The proposal “Block by Block“ to reconsider housing, involving the scale of the block as a catalyst for a collective architecture that goes beyond the individual housing unit, provides an excellent opportunity to reflect upon and more broadly question contemporary issues related to housing, such as its dimension, the application of new mixed-used zoning programs, ecological impact, and cost.
Carlos Bedoya, Juror
Can we reimagine the residential block as a new kind of collective architecture?
Cuéllar and Yi’s research seeks to design more just and desirable housing models by engaging the scale of the block. Vast swaths of North American cities are blocks of single-family zoned lots. Making up 90 percent of all buildings in the US, single-family homes are critical sites to address climate change, housing justice, and evolving demographics, yet few of these spaces are designed by architects and planners. Rather, they are defined by zoning, which has historically created barriers to attainable, quality housing for all. Municipalities across North America are implementing zoning reform and rewriting the housing system. To date, however, these changes are largely considered on a lot-by-lot basis. A greater potential is to cultivate collectives at the scale of the block to fulfill common goals and generate new, dense, welcoming, and lively housing options.
Toward this goal, the team will study blocks through both top-down policies and ground-up efforts reshaping their futures, focusing on neighborhoods in Detroit and Cincinnati as starting points. Through research and dialogue with residents, policymakers, and developers in these two cities, they will create design proposals for future blocks that interweave social and environmental justice with desirable and attainable housing designs. These new blocks, synthesizing the design of building types, property, and land, will be presented in public meetings in Detroit and Cincinnati with the goal of aligning design with municipal zoning reform toward a more collective and hopeful project of housing.
A series of strategies aimed at overcoming the minimum lot size zoning ordinance and designing across lot lines. © Gabriel Cuéllar.
We are incredibly excited and grateful for this opportunity to propose more just, desirable, and attainable housing models. We appreciate the SOM Foundation’s call this year to focus attention on housing. The single-family zoned urban block is being rewritten by both top-down zoning policy reform and bottom-up resident-led coalitions, and it is an exciting time to engage in these momentous shifts in our cities. Our focus on the urban block over the individual lot sees potential in more collective models of envisioning housing. We hope to take an intersectional approach and work on housing as a system with spatial, social, legal, economic, ecological, and cultural dimensions. The SOM Foundation Research Prize provides the resources for us to share new knowledge through research, teaching, and design, as well as the platform to build dialogue between the public and municipalities through our work.
Gabriel Cuéllar and De Peter Yi
Courtyard Block directs California’s recent SB9 zoning reform toward more collective uses of open space in the typical residential block. © De Peter Yi.
Gabriel Cuéllar
University of Michigan
College of Architecture and Urban Planning
De Peter Yi
University of Cincinnati
College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning
is an architect, urban designer, educator, and codirector, with Athar Mufreh, of Cadaster, a design practice founded in 2016. Cadaster designs for systems change, contributing strategic frameworks to local governments and community-based organizations driving systemic spatial trans-formation. Cuéllar is currently an Assistant Professor of Architecture and Anti-Racist Urban Design at the University of Michigan, where he was previously the Swanson Visiting Assistant Professor and Oberdick Fellow. Cuéllar was a Professor-in-Practice at the University of Minnesota between 2019 and 2023. His research has been published by Sternberg Press and Routledge, as well as Oase and Footprint journals. Gabriel has contributed to projects exhibited at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the Netherlands Architecture Institute, the House of World Cultures, The New School Parsons School of Design, and the University of Michigan. In his design-research, Cuéllar focuses on spatial politics and struggles for justice, especially in relation to land, housing, cultural heritage, and contemporary environments.
is the founder of the research and design practice Rebuild Collective, and an Assistant Professor in Architecture at the University of Cincinnati. He is a first-generation immigrant to the United States, where his experiences growing up in low-income and cooperative housing communities continue to inspire and inform his work. His research uncovers how individual acts of building scale to collective social and environmental impact through both top-down and bottom-up initiatives. His recent work includes writing, workshops, and design projects that engage the public with municipalities to advance material reuse, zoning reform, and new housing models. Previously, he was a cofounder and codirector of 1+1+ Architects in Detroit, the Sanders Research Fellow at the University of Michigan, and a designer with Studio Gang Architects in Chicago. He is the author of Building Subjects, a book on resident-adapted collective housing typologies in China.
