“Collective Housing in Taos: An Architectural Inquiry Across Time”
will explore, analyze, critique, draw, and ultimately learn from the diverse forms of collective housing found in and around Taos, New Mexico.
This summer students will research Taos’s rich contribution to collective housing, including but not limited to:
1. Taos Pueblo, 1325 CE–Present
2. Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, 1200 CE–Present
3. Taos Earth Ships, 1970’s
4. Valverde Commons, 2006
5. Taos Town Square, 1796–present
Each of these structures have become important cultural spaces for the communities who built them. In the case of Taos Pueblo and the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, the community has inhabited and cared for these spaces for hundreds of years, providing the class with case studies that connect contemporary issues related to housing shortages and climate change to a deep cultural history. In addition, we will look at case studies from architecture’s history, including but not limited to:
1. Ivan Leonidov’s Town of Magnitogorsk, 1930’s
2. MVRDV’s Mirador Housing, 2005
3. OMA’s Nexus World Housing, 1991
We will also learn about architectural tools of representation and analysis, which will help us better understand these structures at two scales: the unit of aggregation or the individual; and the whole or the collective. We will use the drawing coupled with field trip observations as the main method of research.
For more information, email Dr. Jared Macken:
jared.macken@okstate.edu
