nothin New Vlock House Rocks, With Neighbors’ Help | New Haven Independent

New Vlock House Rocks, With Neighbors’ Help

Allan Appel Photo

168 Plymouth.

The design of this year’s Vlock” house draws on the classic New Haven three-decker, found from East Rock to Kimberly Square. It draws as well on a vision of how to house people who know the insecurity of sleeping in tents or under bridges and therefore want security.

One of the “typology” or model buildings, nearby, at Lamberton and Plymouth

That new design was on display Monday evening as more than 100 people crowded around the three-story, three unit, modernist cube that over the summer has replaced three empty lots to become168 Plymouth St., right behind the commercial center of Kimberly Square in the Hill.

The occasion marked the first public viewing of the Yale School of Architecture’s 2019 Jim Vlock First Year Building Project, an annual student-designed and built home in a low-income New Haven neighborhood.

The completed edifice is third in the 52-year history of the initiative done in collaboration with Columbus House, the stalwart homelessness-combating nonprofit and other community groups in the Hill.

The Moret family: Happy about their new neighboring house.

The project produces an affordable home each year. First-year architecture students build every foot of concrete, every board and nail. Then a low-income family, or two, move in.

This year the challenge was to build a structure that could house three units — not families, but individuals or perhaps couples.

That was the word from initiative supervisor Adam Hopfner. The project involves all 62 of the school’s first-year students, divided into six teams of ten each submitting a design.

Project managers Heather Schneider and Scott Simpson.

This year’s project evolved in the wake of the first two affordable rentals built by Columbus House and the Yale Vlock students at 54 Adeline St. and 41 Button St. The neighborhood community management team complained it didn’t have enough input in those projects. So this year the neighbors participated in the crafting of the deal. In exchange for the $3,000 sale of the city-owned lot, the design team agreed, the new structure would echo the late-19th Century style of other neighborhood structures. Neighbors also had input when the architectural jurors, along with Columbus House, the technical owner of the property, made their selection of a winning design.

After many meetings and visits, it went, by all appearances, very successfully.

The immediate neighbors of 168 Plymouth, the Moret family, were ecstatic in their praise both for their new cube neighbor and the spirit and helpfulness of the Yale students who put the project together over just four months. A round-robin team of 14 students all put in 40-hour weeks in constructing the building over the summer.

The students included a new wooden fence, giving the Morets more privacy by replacing an aging chain link.

The help went both ways, with Leonard Moret letting the students use his water and hoses when they were mixing concrete for the foundation before the lot had obtained its own water supply.

Students who helped build the house: Hyun Jae Jung, Ife Adepegba, Nicole Ratajczak, Isa Akerfeldt-Howard, and Sasga Zwiebl.

This is just beautiful,” Moret said Monday evening as cars and even a chartered bus load arrived carrying the students to the house, which still has three or four weeks of work to finish.

Awesome,” said John Moret, his son.

Can I get a floor?” said John’s wife Jasmine.

The two students selected by their peers to be project managers, Heather Schneider and Scott Simpson, were equally pleased. A lot of the schemes submitted were one-story,” said Schneider.

She is unusual among her colleagues, both male and female, in having worked summer construction jobs herself since age 18.

A triple decker is a lot more New Haven‑y,” she added. It was a point of view echoed by the community representatives who participated in the jury process.

Second-floor interior.

The basic design of 168 Plymouth features the same floor plan, including a living room, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom, and a porch or balcony on each of the three floors, said supervisor Hopfner.

Each floor plan is rotated as you ascend the outside steps from floor to floor to allow entrance from a common entry stair case as it moves up through the structure.

The porch or balcony on the first floor is at the back, emphasizing security. On the second and third floors, the spacious porches, with slatted walls and industrial, see-through, railing, allow for an open and engaging connection with the street and also on the side yards.

Hopfner said the project has three or four more weeks more of students’ efforts for full completion. The kitchen cabinets need finishing. The appliances are yet to be installed. Grass will be planted in front and landscaping in back.

The tenants, from Columbus House, have not been selected yet.

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