York Street Maker Spaces

The York Street Challenge, a design competition in Lexington, KY was organized by the North Limestone Community Development Corporation (NoLi CDC) as part of the LuigART Maker Spaces initiative which received an implementation grant in 2013 from ArtPlace America. The competition invited designers to generate a design that would allow NoLi CDC to repurpose nearly forty contiguous ‘shotgun’ styled homes from the turn of the 20th century into affordable and highly flexible live-work spaces for makers and their families.

Our winning entry for this competition sought to preserve the memory of the original homes while creating a design based on what we call an ‘open source format’ – a single plan that can be customized for each maker while fostering social and creative collaboration within the LuigART community.

The Maker Spaces were completed in 2016 using Computerized Numerical Control (CNC) fabrication methods. The wood structure for both homes is an assembly of pieces milled entirely on our CNC machine that fit together like a puzzle. The pre-cut parts were delivered on pallets and assembled on site using only rubber mallets, screw guns and a little elbow grease.

The York Street Maker Spaces are a continuation into our research and development mission to challenge the boundaries of conventional architecture through making.

Final photos by Matt Huber of Matt Mediaworks