Toward new tracts for America : the house and its serial deployment

Abstract

This thesis is a proposition for suburban tract housing in the United States. A brief critical history of the production of suburban housing and some precedents for architecturally motivated responses to its shortcomings provide the basis from which a set of design principles is established . These principles are then applied to the (re)design of a block and a half of Levittown, NY and a prototypical pair of houses which comprise it. Working within the immutable system of land subdivision and its resultant seriality of minimal houses, the goal is to create a condition that supports habitability and flexibility of spatial, constructional and programmatic systems at all levels, from house to neighborhood .