Home Sweet Home Exhibition
"Evolutive
Housing," curated by Omar Ali and Nimet Anwar, is a design-research
project initiated by New Orleans-based practice, NO OFFICE. The project considers the effects of gentrification and displacement through the lens of housing in the city of Houston. Housing availability in the city is not unlike the typical offerings of a suburb: single-family homes and multi-family apartment complexes of various sizes and scales, but as housing needs grow Houston is increasingly looking to middle-scale housing types.
Cities across the country deal with housing availability issues due to restrictive zoning laws that hinder the application of multifamily housing at the middle scale.
Houston is at the forefront of progressive strategies for filling this
absence through its relaxed approach to zoning as well as the excess of
spec middle-scale housing projects led by developers. This approach has
shown to be useful but is keeping housing ownership out of reach to a
large percentage of Houstonians. Houston serves as a critical case study
that can be applied to cities throughout the country that are in the
midst of addressing a scarcity of affordable housing. Architects can
lead this conversation by partnering with Community Land Trusts and
producing new strategies for socially-minded housing for not only some
but for all.
The exhibit includes contributions from student Research Assistants - Joey, Tomshe B.Arch ‘25,
Jose Varela Castillo, B.Arch ‘24, Olivia Vercruysse, B.Arch ‘24 - and
aerial cinematography from Nicholas LiCausi, TuSA Director of
Fabrication. Funding to support this project is from TuSA, Tulane's CELT
Faculty Mentored Undergraduate Research Fund, and Tulane’s Phyllis M.
Taylor Center for Social Innovation and Design Thinking and the Michael
Sacks Chair in Civic Engagement and Social Entrepreneurship. In
collaboration with Houston Community Land Trust (HCLT), an independent
non-profit.