Reclaiming the Projects: Reinterpreting Social Housing Through the Revitalization of the Robert F. Wagner Houses

Since the turn of the twentieth century, the scheme of modernist mass housing has been coined the term Social Housing with the affiliation to such idioms as low-income dwellings, the projects, affordable living, and public housing. A question is raised about the appropriateness of these terms and, in fact, the possibilities they hold. The objective of this thesis is to remove the stigmas associated and define the term ‘Social’, and its related idioms, in respect to the dwelling and its social and political conditioning by investigating alternative strategies to this model. The thesis aims to develop speculative and innovative approaches to an example of this design standard, in the revitalization of the Robert F. Wagner Houses of Harlem, New York.