Narrow House

This project was submitted by Only If and has been selected as an Editor’s Pick.

“Located in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, the Narrow House is situated on an atypical New York City lot measuring 13’-4” wide by 100’ deep, which is slenderer than the normative 25-foot-wide zoning lot. Despite its non-conformity, the site met other specific criteria which enabled
development of the vacant lot. Since 1961, the Zoning Resolution has generally prohibited new residential
buildings on lots less than 18 feet in width.

Although rapidly transforming, the neighborhood is characterized by a number of vacant lots that were an outcome of so-called urban renewal, including this site. In parallel to this project, the architect, Only If, has been researching residual, vacant, and irregular lots throughout New York City. A 2017 exhibition by the architect at the Shenzhen Biennale identified and cataloged 3,600 such lots, 600 of which were
owned by the city. The architect was also a winner of an open international competition organized by the
AIA New York and New York City Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) to develop 23 city-owned
vacant, irregular lots, including an identical, vacant lot directly adjacent to this one. The Narrow House
represents a specific architectural proposition but is also a prototype for infill and a polemic on the
greater potential for architectural invention in constrained residual urban spaces.

The project was self-initiated, developed, and is occupied by the architects themselves, who acquired the
undervalued land in 2015. In this sense, the project also seeks a model of architectural agency, beyond
the client-architect service model, to produce experimental forms of housing.

On such a constrained site, the main problem in the design of the Narrow House is not form or outward
appearance, but rather daylight and circulation. In fact, the zoning regulations mostly dictate the exterior
volume of the building, which is primarily finished in black stucco. The remainder of the façade, facing
the street and rear yard, consists of glass curtain wall, which maximizes daylight to the inside and is
detailed flush to the adjacent stucco.

Aside from two lateral walls, the house is characterized by an absence of interior walls, rooms, and
corridors. The openness—exactly 11’ clear inside—enables daylight penetration throughout, but also an
unusual lack of separation. In lieu of walls, the split-level section creates spatial distinctions between
different domestic functions. The vertical void inside the central, perforated steel staircase becomes a
lightwell, further introducing daylight towards the middle of the plan.

The ground floor is raised slightly above street level. It provides open space for living, eating, and
cooking. A 28-foot-long bar volume, finished in black perforated metal, black stained oak, and black
terrazzo, accommodates kitchen components. At the rear of the ground floor, an oversized glass pivot
door opens to the rear yard, extending the living space to the outside. Upstairs, different levels provide for
two bedrooms and a work study, which could be converted into an additional third bedroom. The
bedrooms are separated from other spaces through a plywood volume, containing bathrooms, closets,
and pocket doors for privacy.

The lateral walls consist of reinforced concrete masonry units (CMU), and floors are composite concrete
and corrugated metal deck. Based on the lot width, the clear span of floors is close to the maximum limit
of the structure without requiring additional beams or support. Floors throughout are topped with a
poured polyurethane finish, and the structure is exposed on the ceilings. Without interior shear walls, the
building is braced at the front and rear façade for lateral stability. Three diagonal steel braces are also
exposed behind the front façade.”