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1172 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, New York 10027
1172 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, New York 10027
1172 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY 10027
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1172 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY 10027
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1172 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY 10027
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1172 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, New York 10027
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Housing Lab
ABOUT THE HOUSING LAB
The Columbia GSAPP Housing Lab brings together faculty and students from across the disciplines represented at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation and Columbia University at large to leverage expertise around some of the most critical challenges facing urban housing today. Using a design approach, the Lab creates meaningful collaborations and practical opportunities for architects, developers, and planners to advance interdisciplinary work and promote creative methods and bold interventions for affordable, adaptive, and resilient housing. The Lab is a locus for testing and demonstrating methods of practice-based scholarship and pedagogy.
The Housing Lab is an GSAPP-wide initiative under the leadership of the Dean’s Office.
The Lab’s work is supported by generous seed funding from the IDC Foundation.
10 QUESTIONS FOR HOUSING
The 10 Questions for Housing project is a series of questions that examine some of the key facts, challenges, and issues facing housing affordability within New York City and the surrounding region. These range from understanding how affordability is defined, how many vacant apartments exist in the city, who the statistically average New Yorker is, and how much money is provided to various government agencies involved with housing as well as services for the houseless.
The collection of questions and their supporting graphics and text aim to make these critical and complex topics both digestible and provide ideas which can be catalyzed into action. The pieces are designed to be informative to the general public, as well as policymakers, advocates, and design professionals. The aim is to contribute to a more informed conversation around housing affordability and help spark solutions to a critical issue.
WHO WE ARE
2024 RESEARCH TEAM
Galia Solomonoff, Director
Eddie Palka, Adjunct Associate Research Scholar, ‘18 M.Arch
Benjamin Vassar, Graduate Research Assistant, '25 M.Arch
Julian Krusic O'Donnell, Graduate Research Assistant, '26 M.Arch
Students
Research assistantships and fellowships at the lab are competitive and processed through the GSAPP application form once or twice per year. We encourage all interested students to respond to the posted positions. For the lab’s first year, research assistants and fellows were appointed in a competitive interview process through nominations from program directors and faculty.
The project assistant program engages students on an hourly basis to support project work. To be considered, any interested student currently enrolled at GSAPP are encouraged to complete a brief application and upload their CV here to join the roster that is consulted on a rolling basis.
Faculty
and mentorship is critical to the lab’s commitment to rigor and research. Interested faculty are encouraged to reach out to facultyaffairs@arch.columbia.edu.
Alums and Professionals
Involvement and support is essential to advancing the Lab’s mission of grounding action-oriented practice. Please reach out to gsappalumni@columbia.edu.
Previous Faculty and Student Affiliates
Graduate Research Assistants (GRA)
2023
Kavyaa Rizal ‘23 MSUP; Jamon Mok, '23 MArch; Lula Chou '24 MSRED, MArch
2022
Jacob Kackley '23 M.Arch; Alisa Nurmansyah, '23 MSUP; Dillon Pinholster '23 MSRED
2021
Bernadette Baird-Zars, '22 PhD, Urban Planning; Jules Kleitman, '22 MArch; Jonathan Marty, '22 MSUP; Danielle Roberts, '22 MSUP
2020-2021
Juan Sebastian Moreno, '21 MSUP
Johane Juliana Clermont, '22 MArch/MSRED
Eric J. Iglesias, '21 MSRED
2019-2020
Ericka Mina Song, ‘20 MArch
Erin Purcell, ‘20 MSRED
Lab Project Associates Aditi Shetye, '22 MArch Jenna Davis, PhD Candidate Maria (Maru) Perez, '21 MArch, Fall 2019-Spring 2021 Ian Wach, '21 MArch, Fall 2020-Spring 2021 Mariana Hinojosa, MArch/MSUP '21, Summer 2020
Spring 2020 Project Assistants
Lanier Hagerty '21, MSUP
Kate McNamara ‘20 MArch
Genevieve Mateyko, MArch Student
Angela Sun, MArch Student
Zeineb Sellami '21, MSUP
Hyun Hye Cathy Bae ‘20 PhD
Ochuko Okor, MArch Student
Michael Snidal PhD Candidate
Yousu Jang ‘20 MSRED
Conor Allerton ‘20 MSUP
Hayes Buchanan, MSUP Student
Mark-Henry Decrausaz, MSRED/MArch Student
2021-2022 Faculty Advisors Mario Gooden Cecily King
2020-2021 Faculty Advisors Mario Gooden Lance Freeman
2019-2020 Faculty (Biennale project-focused)
Daisy Ames
Adam Frampton
Members of the GSAPP faculty who contributed their advice and guidance over the past year include:
Ryan Devlin, Visiting Assistant Professor of Urban Planning
Hilary Sample, IDC Professor of Housing Design
Elliott Sclar, Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning
Rich Froehlich, Adjunct Associate Professor of Real Estate Development and Urban Planning
Lance Freeman, Professor of Urban Planning
Anna Puigjaner, Associate Professor of Professional Practice in Architecture
Laura Kurgan, Professor of Architecture
Patrice Derrington, Holliday Associate Professor and Director of the Real Estate Development Program
Andreas Tjeldflaat, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Architecture
Values
From a multidisciplinary perspective, the Lab team seeks to broaden the understandings of housing beyond units that can be paid for. In our initial conception, we advocate for housing that is:
- Accessible: housing should be connected and embedded in quality environments, with access to meaningful services, communities, and opportunities.
- Resilient: housing should be constructed and maintained for health and safety, adaptive to disasters and climate change, and an asset securely enmeshed in networks of belonging and appreciation.
- Inclusive: housing should be affordable such that a connected, decent, resilient, and beautiful home does not preclude health or food, and is intentionally accessible to the heterogeneity of people and households.
