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Collective for Equitable Housing


About


The Collective for Equitable Housing (CEH) brings together architecture, urban design, and urban planning faculty at Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning to promote housing equity within the state of Michigan and beyond. By leveraging faculty expertise, funding, and community based partnerships, we pursue research questions and impact-driven projects that:

  • Address Housing Affordability
  • Enable Equitable Community Development
  • Promote Sustainable Building Design and Practices

The CEH promotes and disseminates the college’s existing research and creative practice addressing these issues, develops interdisciplinary projects within the college and with other University of Michigan researchers and entities, and works with external partners and funders in support of these efforts.







Design for Attainable Construction Sustainable Construction & Resources Zoning & Code Innovation for Sustainable Housing Enabling Financial Structures for Equitable Development

Research & Teaching

Taubman College faculty are dedicated to finding pathways for more equitable housing in teaching, research, and creative practice. Through studios, capstones, and seminars, our faculty has educated a generation of architects and planners toward future affordable housing design practice, equitable and sustainable development and financing, and community resilience.

We design and build projects ranging from the scale of ADUs to adaptive reuse to multi-family housing, and study fabrication and building technology from the perspective of both DIY building and automated construction.

We study the impacts of development regulations such as zoning and building codes on housing supply and urban inequalities and develop strategies to preserve affordable housing.

Our faculty’s expertise and areas of strength are defined by four broad and overlapping areas of interest:



  • Design For Attainable Construction
  • Sustainable Construction & Resources
  • Zoning & Code Innovation for Sustainable Housing
  • Enabling Financial Structures for Equitable Development


          











Design: Northwood ADU, T+E+A+M Design: 4 Over 4, T+E+A+M Teaching: Collectives Graduate Studio Teaching: Systems Graduate Studio





Design For Attainable Construction


How can community-based models of construction, such as training programs and shared tools, be scaled to reduce the costs of building and to create lasting equity across communities?

Can a design-build program become a pathway for these models, developing construction skills within existing communities while creating livable prototypes of equitable housing?

Can we partner nationally with other research entities and municipalities to build a continuously updated database of block-scale case studies and communicate successful examples of equitable housing in similar contexts?

 



Design: SouthTown by 4M: Synecdoche, Adam Smith and Lisa Sauve Design: The Canopy, PLY+, Craig Borum and Jen Maigret





Sustainable Construction & Resources


How might building technology, construction innovation, or automation be utilized to scale?

What alternatives exist for conventional stick-frame construction and housing models?

Are proposals for “missing middle housing” meeting the demand of contemporary families and their communities?

Can Michigan and other locations within the Great Lakes region become hubs for the manufacturing of timber building components?

 



Design: How to Build Our Own Living Structures, Laura Peterson Research: The Michigan Eviction Project, Rob Goodspeed and Margi Dewer Event: Re: Housing Detroit Research: Housing Production and the Structural Transformation of China’s Real Estate Development Industry, Lan Deng, Shillong Li, Weican Zuo, Yuan Han




Zoning Regulation & Code Innovation for Sustainable Housing 


How can research and design practices inform efforts to reform building codes and zoning regulations to allow for flexible building types and mixed-use development?

How can those efforts improve housing affordability, reduce residential segregation, and promote a sustainable built environment?






Design: Osi Art Apartments at West End, Volume One Design, Lars Gräbner & Christina Hansen Research: Preserving Low Income Housing in Detroit, Lan Deng Teaching: Urban and Regional Planning Capstone Studio Research: Housing Policy Debate, Lan Deng and Zhilin Liu Publication:: Bringing it home: Improving Tomorrow’s Living Environments Teaching: Domestic Collectives Graduate Seminar


Enabling Financial Structures for Equitable Development


How can research and design practices help identify alternative development and redevelopment models that would offer opportunities to households of different socioeconomic backgrounds and preserve existing affordable housing to ensure equitable distribution of costs and benefits?

How can we structure public and private partnerships and identify innovative financial solutions to enable those developments?

How can the U.S. learn from other countries in the provision of affordable housing and equitable development?

How might tools such as land-banks and community land trust be leveraged towards new models of homeownership and financing?

News



CEH Awarded NSF Civic Innovation Challenge Planning Grant Fure part of a team awarded a $750,000 capacity grant from the MI Department of Labor & Economic Opportunity to build a youth-focused Home for Healing CEH featured in Portico Magazine Re: Housing: Detroit Symposium Cuéllar Awarded 2023 SOM Foundation Research Prize To Pursue Adapting Housing Strategies Event: Housing Works: Turning Research to Action for Equitable Housing Collaboration Between Taubman College and Stone Center Examines Housing Inequality and Justice in the U.S.
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equitablehousing@umich.edu
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