Michelle Badr

Carving Commons



This proposal for housing in Tijuana, Mexico aims to densify an existing border town with 500 additional units. When faced with limited space and resources, a critical question must be addressed: what are the benefits of trading private space for public resources? By looking at the scale of the private block, or privada in Spanish, the proposal aims to unite existing housing stock and carve it in a manner that addresses basic needs while pushing public resources to interstitial spaces or “backyards”. While the private domestic space may be tight, public amenities such as bath-houses, play spaces, and communal kitchens spill out into a new landscape that zig-zags across the new privadas within the privadas.