Learning from the Least Housed

A case for agile, self-build and bottom-up options to
unlock housing choice … by many means necessary. 


published at Sightline Institute as:

"LEARNING FROM THE LEAST HOUSED
A case for agile, self-build, and bottom-up options to unlock housing choice… by many means necessary."
https://www.sightline.org/2023/09/14/learning-from-the-least-housed/


Note, the title is an allusion to the landmark 1972 achitecture/planning work, Learning from Las Vegas, by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour. This book is a personal favorite and inspiration, and among the most influential and referenced works in architecture/planning of the last 50 years. 

  Learning From Las Vegas was based on the article "A Significance for A&P Parking Lots, or Learning from Las Vegas", by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Architectural Forum, March 1968; and also on the Fall 1969 Yale School of Architecture studio and site visit program, "Learning from Las Vegas, or Form Analysis as Design Research," led by Venturi and Scott Brown. 

Below: covers of the 1972 original edition from MIT Press, and the 1977 reissue in paperback. The oversized, rather grand and expensive 1972 book design, by Muriel Cooper, was controversial, and I would say a or the iconic case of a book design being antithetical to the book contents. 

OHNA housing plan response, Aug 2022