Year
2010

Client
Bridgeport Neighborhood Trust

The Bridgeport Neighborhood Trust, a non-profit housing developer, approached the Yale Urban Design Workshop to test the feasibility of a low income residential project on a set of contiguous, but extremely narrow, sites along a mapped dead end alley.  The sites were formerly occupied by extremely dense, early 20th century, three family worker houses which had burned down, and are in a transitional zone between Marina Village, a public housing project in Bridgeport, and more traditional neighborhood fabric.  Accommodating parking and providing vehicular access to the site became primary challenges on this highly constrained inner city site.

The proposed scheme takes the form of a head and tail building - the head, on the corner of Columbia Street and Columbia Court, is the most visible piece of the building and contains public functions such as a meeting room, leasing office for the developer, and community space, as well as the elevator and accessible housing units.  The tail contains the balance of the residential units organized along and exterior breezeway.  

Auto access is provided from Columbia Street, with parking tucked under the tail building, taking advantage of the change in grade from the front to the back of the site. The tail contains the majority of the residential units, arranged along a single loaded exterior corridor, with balconies along the street.