NEWARK, NJ — Fifteen undergraduate students in New Jersey Institute of Technology’s architecture program have designed and built a prototype home that may be part of the solution to Newark’s housing crisis, according to a Dec. 7 press release. The “tiny home” is approximately 8 feet by 12 feet and was designed to help address the city’s homelessness problems.
Erin Pellegrino and Charlie Firestone, adjunct professors of the design studio, also explored some of the root causes of homelessness and how people may be impacted both by individual circumstances and societal structures.
“It is impossible for homelessness to be ‘solved’ by architecture alone, but it’s critical that our industry and our students engage with and design for this issue,” Pellegrino said.
“Homelessness is a real and pressing challenge for the world we live in and our community in Newark has the potential to create meaningful change for people that live here in our city,” Firestone said.
Essex County leads New Jersey in the number of homeless residents with 1,693 — approximately 21 percent of the entire state’s total — according to the nonprofit affordable housing advocacy group Monarch Housing Associates.
Newark City Planning Officer Christopher A. Watson and Newark Homelessness Czar Sakinah Hoyte engaged with faculty and students at NJIT’s Hillier College of Architecture and Design in the development of this prototype affordable housing unit, which is designed to provide a shelter solution for homeless Newark residents.
“We believe that every person in Newark deserves the dignity and safety that comes with having stable housing,” Mayor Ras J. Baraka said. “We applaud the NJIT students and professors for taking a serious look at the housing crisis in Newark, and using their knowledge to create a viable, functioning home that can help solve one of the most important issues of our time.”
“Access to shelter remains an equity issue in this country, this city, and as we are now engaged in the community input phase of our master plan, Newark360, this prototype provides an excellent example of the different approaches we must consider as a city to, one, provide an affordable house option and, two, anchor vulnerable Newarkers in place,” Watson said.
Hoyte provided students with the demographic profiles of the Newark community members for whom they were designing.
“We have three extremely vulnerable groups who need housing: people with disabilities and other health issues; people who have partnered for safety on the street and that need to be housed together; and those who need shelter from domestic violence, who often have children with them,” Hoyte said.
The project, wholly designed and built by the students and professors, was also inspired by conversations about alternative housing solutions as they gain momentum in the general consciousness. Tiny homes have become trendy and accessory dwelling units are increasing in popularity and legality in municipalities across the United States, allowing for urban, exurban and even suburban areas to densify. The growing availability and accessibility of mass-production technologies has sparked a blossoming of modular home designs making use of automated control of machining tools, 3D printing and other fabrication technologies.
“I’m inspired by what it stands for; it is trying to solve something for the city of Newark. It can be deployed and easily moved from one site to another,” student Pramit Khatri said of the tiny home. “There’s a lot of stigma that surrounds homelessness and I think this is a really dignified way of solving it. This design is more of a home than a shelter.”
Photos Courtesy of NJIT
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