Brooklyn Mat Housing

The intention of this project was to create a housing complex in Brooklyn using ideas generated from analysis of canonical mat buildings.The resultant architecture is comprised of an aggregation of twoself-similar unit blocks, which are rotated, mirrored and flipped tocreate a variety of configuration types and spatial relationships. Thestructure of this aggregation is based on a implied set of grids anddatums which hold together the part-to-part, non-totalizing overallform. The circulation about the building takes place on the exterior,allowing for each unit to be accessed from the outside and creating amultitude of horizontal landscape platforms for domestic life. Thebuilding consists of two materials, represented as white and black,organized in a salt-and-pepper mixture. A wood cladding is added to thesouth and west facing sides to unify the units while still maintainingthe individuality provided by the changing material.