This thesis is intended to demonstrate a strategy for the creation of mixed income housing in the City of New York as an alternative not only to the upper income cooperative and condominium schemes of the 1980's which do not respond to current housing demands but also to the perennially unpopular, albeit necessary low income housing projects. In the interest of providing a low-impact solution which effectively mediates between speculative concerns and sensitivity to the identity and character of existing neighborhoods, inspiration was derived from unconventional sources. The low profile occupation tactics employed by squatters, artists and the homeless have been applied to the creation of a series of experimental shelter and circulation prototypes which ultimately inform the design of a mixed income housing project to be sited on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.