SC Connecticut News

For decades, the Jim Vlock First Year Building Project has offered students at the Yale School of Architecture the opportunity to design and build a house in New Haven, creating homes for individuals and families who would otherwise struggle to afford one.

The project recently launched a multi-year partnership with the Friends Center for Children, an early-childhood care and education center in New Haven. This collaboration aims to design and build five adjacent houses for two of the center’s educators and their families by 2027. The partnership is part of the Friends Center’s Teacher Housing Initiative, which addresses both childcare and affordable housing crises by providing 20% of the center’s educators with rent-free homes, substantially increasing their take-home pay.

Last year, Yale students designed and built the first duplex dwelling in the Fair Haven Heights neighborhood of New Haven. In this video, we follow the Yale students throughout the year-long process, from initial site visits through design and construction to celebrating the newly completed home.

The project, a key facet of the curriculum in Yale's professional architecture degree program, was established in 1967 when Charles Moore directed Yale’s Department of Architecture from 1965 to 1971. Moore sought to address students’ desire to pursue architecture committed to social action. The first-of-its-kind program is now emulated by many other architecture schools.

In its early years, students traveled to sites in Appalachia to build community centers and medical facilities. Since 1989, when the project switched its focus to building affordable housing in New Haven, first-year students have designed and built more than 50 homes in economically challenged neighborhoods within the city.