Medium Density Affordable Housing.
Manchester Neighbourhood, Pittsburgh, USA.
Group project with Mila Kavalieros at Carnegie Mellon University.

Privately owned single-family residences dominate the Manchester neighborhood, shaping car-dependent, carbon-intensive lifestyles. The upcoming Esplanade project further strains ecological limits and social foundations, accelerating gentrification and displacement. What if we counter these pressures by ensuring long-term affordability through a Community Land Trust and a Limited Equity Cooperative, creating a dense mixed-use hub with shared housing, co-working, and recreational spaces owned and managed by the community?

The project introduces radical middle grounds of social commoning through shared ownership and collective decision-making. These middle grounds materialize through hybrid typologies that weave together domestic, civic, and productive programs. Housing interlocks with event spaces, gardens merge with circulation, and communal rooms serve as flexible cultural infrastructure. Such overlaps enable residents to inhabit multiple roles—neighbor, worker, caretaker—while fostering a resilient urban commons. Responding to the shift toward centralized, big-box recreational facilities that isolate activity and limit access, the project embeds multiscalar recreation directly within the housing framework. Micro-fitness niches, adaptable play areas, community courts, movement studios, and outdoor active terraces become part of daily life rather than separate destinations. These accessible, collectively governed amenities establish another middle ground: a continuous gradient between living, working, and recreation that strengthens social cohesion and supports holistic well-being.