The Table Top Apartments responds to Mayor de Blasio’s priority placed on creating more affordable housing in New York City, by using both new sites and redeveloping existing sites. The housing crisis for the last two decades has generated a more and more socially disparate city, with the majority of NYC residents spending more than half of their yearly income on rent. The Table Top Apartments provides a housing solution based on the modular system of a “table top” which aggregates and stacks to provide density and diversity as a prototype for affordable housing in New York City. The system is not only flexible to accommodate the various lot sizes of New York City, but is also adaptable to various unit combinations, allowing for a diversity of apartment types.

The Table Top Apartments uses a system of modules based on the form of stacking table tops to generate affordable housing as 4-story walk-ups, piers, towers with setbacks and cascading balconies, and even superblocks. This system emerges from the use of a few simple modular elements which aggregate to create a new mode of living. The concept of the module is taken from a table top with four legs where the table top or slab is shaped as either a circle, square or rectangle, and the table legs or columns serve as the building’s structure and space for vertical services. The post-and-slab table top units stack and aggregate, creating different combinations of unit-types to emphasize the project’s assertion that diversity paired with density makes for a healthy and sustainable living environment. A simple storefront glazing system mediates between the interior of the units and the exterior, while private spaces and bathrooms are enclosed in wood cabinets.

The use of three different table top shapes, which are deliberately misaligned when stacked, create apertures in the slab between units. The resulting vertical courtyard space forms a realm that serves as space for public circulation, bringing in light and air. The spatial juxtapositions of The Table Top Apartments generate a new way of living in affordable housing that is dense, diverse, open, and light.