a more sustainable direction. These foreclosures offer the opportunity to test a new system for small-scale infill houses, showing how the development of infill strategies can improve the economic realities of existing homeowners while simultaneously opening the potential for homeownership to a greater percentage of American households. This project proposes a single manipulation to the typical suburban zoning code and outlines the spatial and economic possibilities that result from this change. Through local zoning amendments, we would allow current homeowners to sell a percentage of their property. In doing so, a smaller scale of residential properties comes into the market, allowing the development of a smaller typology of home and opening the doors of homeownership to a much larger portion of our population (Images 1-2). This system harnesses the investment potentials of those Americans currently priced out of the homogenous housing market by providing a scale of property in which they can realistically invest. In the short-term, this system of small-scale real estate transactions helps infuse the current market with badly needed investments. These partial-lot sales help offset the debts of current homeowners while introducing a smaller typology of home to the market. In stronger economic times, these partial-lot sales help offset the costs of additions and alterations to existing owners’ properties (Image 3). The suburban home again becomes an asset. Though numerous urban planners and architects have studied various typologies for infilling the suburban landscape, this project goes beyond the study of new housing types. The intent of this project is to create the system through which all of these previous typological housing studies might be brought to fruition.

Describe the critical need your solution addresses.

Over the past five years, I have studied suburban infill housing strategies, developing “combinative housing typologies” to be sited within the side yards, backyards, easements and setbacks of the typical suburban landscape. These designs outlined the potential spatial and economic symbiosis between new infill housing typologies and existing suburban properties (Images 3-6). Currently, I am translating this earlier work to the context of the housing foreclosure crisis. As such, I am researching local regions most impacted by this crisis.

The goal of the project will be the development of a single residential block currently impacted by a foreclosure rate of at least 50%. Based on current research of potential localities, the project’s test site will likely be based in the Northern Virginia region just west of Washington, D.C. The goal of the project’s first year is to find the best test neighborhood and local government with which to collaborate. Similarly, it is vital to find a local non-profit development corporation for a specific suburban test block. During the first year, prize funding will primarily support travel to and research of potential test localities. The goal of the second year is to complete designs for an infill development model specific to the chosen test site. Throughout the second year, prize funds will primarily support my work in collaboration with local officials, current homeowners and economic development experts to develop a specific economic strategy and architectural designs for developing the specific test block. These designs will then be utilized to raise funds from potential investors and state and federal housing funds for constructing the test block. The project’s third year would end with the beginning of construction for the test block and the release of a national design competition, sponsored by prize funds, asking architects to submit designs which translate this project’s process to test blocks in their own towns, showing the project’s potential for replication across the country.

Explain your initiative in more depth and its stage of development.

By addressing the very specific challenge of foreclosure currently facing this nation and harnessing the American population’s resultant open mind for solutions to this crisis, this project will prove the viability of a system for small-scale infill housing applicable to the real estate market in both good and bad economic times. In doing so, this project helps slow the expansion of the suburban landscape into virgin lands, increases the density of our existing suburbs, creates new scales for home ownership more fitting to the economic realities of the American population, and as a result, diversifies our housing stock and increases the number of potential new homeowners in this country.
The project is feasible, relying on current construction technologies and existing methods for property rezoning. It is verifiable as an economic model. Most importantly, it is replicable. The greatest opportunity of the suburban landscape is its relative uniformity. A single answer within the suburban context is replicable across the entire country.

How does your strategy and approach respond creatively and comprehensively to key issues?

Andrew Eben Burdick is the Director of Development for Architecture for Humanity New York and a Project Designer at Polshek Partnership Architects in New York. Mr. Burdick received his M.Arch from the University of Virginia. His graduate designs for reconfigurable apartment modules were exhibited in 2002 at the U.N. World Conference on Aging and again at a U.N. conference in Shanghai. Most recently, Mr. Burdick’s design for an affordable housing prototype received 2nd Place in a competition sponsored by Beyond Housing, a St. Louis-based affordable housing provider. Mr. Burdick has executed a number of complex projects in collaboration with local authorities. During his tenure with AFHny, Mr. Burdick has collaborated on numerous public-policy and design initiatives, creating methods for collaboration between architects, citizen groups, and local government agencies. Most recently, Mr. Burdick collaborated as an advisor to the City of New York and the Rockefeller Foundation for “What if New York City…” an international design competition calling for new approaches to emergency transitional housing for the New York City metropolitan region.