AR 431

DESIGN 7
A CASE STUDY REVIEW:
ORIGINS OF COMMUNITY ARCHITECTURE AND THE
SOCIO ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT IN DESIGN.
MODULE 01 -ACTIVITY 1

SUBMITTED TO:

AR. MA. THERESE M. AUSTRIA

USA, FACULTY

PREPARED AND SUBMITTED BY:

TRICIAH NADINE P. EVANGELISTA

ARCH 4B
 ABSTRACT

The Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project was one of the most visually remarkable large public housing
developments in North America, initially intended and built for medium and low-income groups. Due
to its purported underlying philosophy, architectural style, and construction processes, it was also one
of the most theorized emblems of post-World War II U.S. modernist urbanization and architecture in the
United States. However, it was demolished after almost twenty years owing to a public decree citing
increased graffiti, sexual assaults, and muggings. While The Marseille Unitéd’habitation which literally
means unit of habitation is the first of the series of experimental and futuristic housing blocks developed
by the Architect Le Corbusier after WWII. It became one of the most influential Modernist buildings of
all time with countless iterations tried by other Architects all over the world and developed in different
directions and with different levels of success.

With this study, the researcher will have a deeper understanding to what happened and what went
wrong to Pruitt Igoe using comparative analysis. It will be easier to see the faults and flaw when we
compare a failed structure to a successful one. This also shows the reason why Unite d’Habitation was
a success. There were a lot of reason why Pruitt Igoe was demolished and one of those, was the budget
and the whole plan and design of Yamasaki did not meet which directed to having an alternative
solution which is using a low-quality material. With that, some of users were not satisfied with the
outcome resulting to have a lot of vacancies that has expensive rates which was not suitable for the
low-income users, which led to not having a good maintenance and the rest of the problem just
followed. Comparing Pruitt Igoe to Unite d’Habitation will show you a big difference by just comparing
the images side by side. You can easily pinpoint which was a failure and which was a success.

Keywords: Unite d’Habitation, Pruitt Igoe, Le Corbusier, Minoru Yamasaki, Design Analysis, Comparative
Analysis, Design Approach, Housing Complex, Modernist Architecture.

PART I – INTRODUCTION

This study shows the comparison of these two residential complexes that was built after the World War
II and both example of Modernist Architecture. Revealing analysis of what went wrong with the Pruitt
Igoe of Minoru Yamasaki – why was it demolished and other problem that occurred in the area.
Exploring the successful Unite d’ Habitation of Le Corbusier – what were the strategies and design ideas
in approaching the problem which was rehousing the masses that had been displaced during the
second world war. This aims to site the difference between the two projects which has the same goal
– to give a comfortable and functional housing for the people.
II. CONTENT

The Difference Between Pruitt Igoe Designed by Minuro Yamasaki And

Unite De Habitacion By Le Corbusier

PRUITT IGOE

Pruitt Igoe was built in 1954 and it was the

first high-rise public housing in the city. It was
design by a Japanese Architect Minoru
Yamasaki who also who also designed the
World Trade Center towers and the St. Louis
Lambert International Airport main terminal,
the city also commissioned the firm
Leinweber.

Pruitt Igoe was a Housing project in St. Louis,

Missouri. Designed on 57 acres, with 2870
units, it would be a mini city of 10,000
people, with innovative skip-stop elevators,
communal green spaces, and long
hallways intended to foster community. Life
in Pruitt-Igoe, and in the St. Louis ghetto
generally, is not quite as flamboyant as in
Harlem, but it has the same essential
characteristics. As sociologists have
discovered each time, they have examined
a particular lower-class community in detail,
the lower-class lives in "a world of trouble."

City engineer Harold Bartholomew and

mayor Joseph Darst, aspiring for utmost
efficiency, decided to satisfy almost half of
this goal, to create 5800 units of affordable
housing with the federal funds provided by
the Housing Act with a single, massive
complex. Federal money was funneled into
the project, a product of a post-war public
housing program intended to revitalize
downtown St. Louis in the face of rising
violence and white flight. The Igoe
apartments were intended for whites, the
Pruitt for blacks. Yet when it became clear
that whites were unwilling to move into the
development due to a racist unwillingness
to live alongside African-Americans, it
became all black, with a median income of
$2,718.
There were notable shortcomings of the
design such as no playgrounds.
Playgrounds were added only when
residents petitioned for their construction.
The elevators stopped only for floors 1, 4, 7
and 10. The residents for the other floors had
to use the stairs from the most convenient
one of those specific floors. This was a cost
savings measure.

Public housing removes some of the non-

human sources of danger like rats, or faulty
electrical wiring, but can replace them by
others, as when children fall out of windows
or into elevator shafts in Pruitt-Igoe's high-
rise buildings, or burn themselves on
exposed steam pipes, or cut themselves on
the broken glass outside. The street grid
which used to permeate the site was
replaced with a street network of incredibly
limited permeability and interconnected
parking lots, making it dangerous for police
officers to patrol the site.

The public corridors became dangerous

places. Muggings and gang violence
became a fact of life in Pruitt-Igoe. The
floors of both designs were divided into
confined multi-family arrangements, and
most rooms in Pruitt-Igoe were poorly lit,
though this was at least marginally better
than the windowless rooms found in many
tenements packed wall-to-wall in small lots.
Furthermore, both plans feature
comparatively narrow pathways
considering the amount of foot traffic they
were forced to serve, and the overall
designs demonstrate little thought toward
efficient movement throughout the
buildings.

Yamasaki told the Architectural League of

New York, “deplorable mistakes” made at
Pruitt-Igoe. “Under the pressure of public
housing economics and bureaucracy and
with an over-fascination for a particular site
pattern and a novel architectural device, I
lost sight of the total purpose, that of
building a community,” he said. “We have
designed a housing project, not a
community, which is tragically insensitive to
the humanist aspects of security and
serenity and have multiplied tragedy
because of the great number of buildings
and extent of site.”
UNITE D’HABITACION

The Unité d’Habitation is a seventeen-

storey apartment block built between
1947 and 1952 in Marseilles, France. The
building was designed by the Swiss-
French architect Le Corbusier who
intended
it to be a prototype for mass housing for
the modern age and can be seen as
the culmination of his life’s work.

Unite d’ Habitation is said to have

influenced the Brutalist Style with the
use of beton-brut concrete which was
the least costly in post-war Europe. The
main structure, built on a basic 4.19 m ×
4.19 m
grid, became reinforced concrete. The
vertical structure is a mixture of columns
and walls, with the horizontal structure
being a mixture of beam-supported
slabs,
and individual beams that support
secondary floors of timber panels
supported on steel beams. The artificial
ground supports the whole of the upper
structure on a grid of major transverse
and longitudinal beams that carry the
loads to the pilotis. Longitudinally the
pilotis are placed in pairs on every other
grid at 8.38 m centres. Transversally the
distance between the pilotis is 12.57 m.
The most extreme concept was to build
a structural steel structure above the
artificial ground - a sort of 'bottle rack' –
into which individual residences, built in
a factory, would be slid into position.
This idea was introduced by Jean
Prouvé and enthusiastically taken up by
Le Corbusier and Bodiansky. However,
the framework could not be of steel as
there was a material shortage, and the
design team rather tardily realized the
impracticality of sliding in whole units,
so this innovation was dropped. But the
idea of prefabrication was not
dropped; it was applied to precast
concrete units on the façade and to
interior timber panels for the floor and
wall construction.

The Unité d’Habitation was to be more

than just an apartment block; it was to
be une cité-jardin verticale – a vertical
garden city. Called a ‘unité
d’habitation à grandeur conforme’ – a
‘large standard living unit’ – the idea
was to house about 1600 people, but
with additional features such as shops,
a hotel, a restaurant, a kindergarten,
and communal sports, social and
cultural facilities.

Le Corbusier wants to provide with

serenity and isolation before the sun,
space and greenery, a house that will
be the right container for the family and
to construct a magisterial work of
architecture in God's good nature,
beneath the sky and the sun, that is the
outcome of rigor, grandeur, nobility,
happiness, and grace.'

The building's idea was based on his

study and his five architectural points,
as well as the introduction of a new
architectural 'point,' the brise soleil - a
permanent concrete sunshade. The
apartment portions were designed in
an alternating L-shape, with balconies
on both ends. On floors 7 and 8, there
were to be stores, a hotel, and a
restaurant, and on the roof, there was
to be a complicated garden with
community facilities. Le Corbusier’s
idea of the “vertical garden city” was
based on bringing the villa within a
larger volume that allowed for the
inhabitants to have their own private
spaces, but outside of that private
sector they would shop, eat, exercise,
and gather together. The apartments
were to be accessed via rues
intérieures on every second floor, and
the entire structure was to be raised on
pilotis and supported on a structural
table known as le sol artificiel – the
artificial ground – by Le Corbusier.
Since Le Corbusier did not have many
buildings of such a substantial scale
when compared to the villas. When
designing for such a significant number
of inhabitants, instinct is to design
horizontally spreading out over the
landscape, rather Le Corbusier
designed the community that one
would encounter in a neighborhood
within a mixed use, modernist,
residential high rise.

The building is situated at the center of

a large urban park and is 165 m long
and 56 m high. The building was
organized to be a sort of self-contained
city. Parkland and communal space
occupy the ground plane running up to
the building which is itself propped on
enormous canted piloti. Immediately
above, the replenishment of food and
supplies is placed at the first main
internal level, so you can shop on your
way home. Although the program of
the building is elaborate, structurally it is
simple: a rectilinear ferroconcrete grid,
into which are slotted precast individual
apartment units, like 'bottles into a wire
rack' as the architect put it.

Through ingenious planning, twenty-

three different apartment
configurations were provided to
accommodate single persons and
families as large as ten, nearly all with
double height living rooms and the
deep balconies that form the major
external feature. At the top the
celebrated health and fitness facilities
with running track and pool are set
amongst an abstract arrangement of
communal rooms and sculptural
ventilation towers. The north side is blind
due to cold winds.
PART III – CONCLUSION & ANALYSIS

PRUITT IGOE

Problems/issues of Pruitt Igoe

• The elevator doesn’t stop on every floor, so many people must walk up or down to get
their apartments.
• Bottles and other dangerous things get thrown out of windows and hurt people.
• People use the stairwell and laundry rooms for drinking.
• The high level of involvement of the government and special interest lobbies such as Busch
and Kaufman dramatically changed the Pruitt-Igoe proposals for the worse, contributing
to its quick failure.
• No security – people who don’t liv in the building com in and make a lot of trouble with
fights, stealing, drinking and the likes.
• Residents subject to violent crime in the long hallways.
• High vacancy rate.
• The project’s maintenance and operations were unsubsidized.
• Lacks sufficient access to transportation, jobs, and food.
UNITE D’HABITATION
Success of Unite d’Habitacion

• Each unit has two floors connected by an internal staircase leading to the narrow
bedrooms and a double-height space, living room with a wall around windows,
allowing a complete picture of the landscape.
• Extending from one side of the building to another and provides balcony.
• Apartments are covering the whole floor but allow to natural light and ventilation to be
permeable in both sides and surround the apartments.
• Bright apartment covering the full width of the building, have sea view mountain view.
• Has a lively façade.
• They are meant for families with a master bedroom and two smaller bedrooms.
• They are split level with a double height space, and they run the full width of the
building, so they have a Westerly and Easterly outlook. The apartments because they
have double outlooks have the chance of cross ventilation.
 PRUITT IGOE
1. Long hallways.
Crimes are rampant in Pruitt Igoe that
were usually done by outsiders and it’s
a terrifying thing to walk alone in a long
hallway without knowing that there’s
someone lurking behind you. Its not a
defensive area because you cannot
immediately hide or take refuge.
2. Skip-stop elevators
Elevators are supposed to make the
lives of the user easier. Its is supposed to
lessen the amount of time they
accumulate when using stairs. Instead,
elevators stopped only at the first,
fourth, seventh, and tenth floors,
forcing residents to use stairs which is a
terrible way for them. A lot of thieves,
molesters, and drunkard men stays
under or in the stairs. The sole purpose
of the elevator was not really used in
the building which made it kind of
useless or hassle for the users.
3. Cheap fixtures or poor plumbing
Since politics been involved in the
project there was a shortage with the
budget which led to have cheap
fixture and poor quality of the materials.
The fixture did not meet the comfort
and quality the users needed. The
project was not subsidized, the project
only depended on the payment of the
rent and since there’s only few
occupants, there’s not a lot of income
to pay for the maintenance, which also
led to plumbing problem living it
unfixed. There where complains that
some corridors were flooded from
broken pipes which is troubling for the
users.
UNITE D’ HABITATION
1. Lively color
Unite d’Habitation has a brutalist style
which has a hard characteristic that
brings a heavy feel. Lively colors like red,
yellow, green, blue that can be seen
from the outside and it brings bright and
positive energy to place. Physiologically,
you’ll feel safe and secure with these
colors, and it lightens the overall look of
the building.
2. Communal spaces
The roof becomes a garden terrace that
has a running track, a club, a
kindergarten, a gym, and a shallow pool.
Beside the roof, there are shops, medical
facilities, and even a small hotel
distributed throughout the interior of the
building. The Unite d’Habitation is
essentially a “city within a city” that is
spatially, as well as, functionally
optimized for the residents.
3. Double height living
Double height living space reducing the
number of required corridors to one
every three floors. Residences were
stacked and wrapped around shared
corridors, allowing each unit to extend
from one side of the building to the other
for maximum sunlight. This also minimized
wasted hallway space, since only one
access passage was required for each
set of three living levels. By narrowing the
units and allowing for a double height
space, Corbusier is capable of efficiently
placing more units in the building and
creating an interlocking system of
residential volumes
4. Poor ventilation
Poor ventilation led to accumulating
foul order which is very disturbing for the
user and lack of natural lighting that
makes some space darker. These
spaces where used as hiding spots of
the gangs of thieves of those who are
not living in the building complex.
Hallway of Pruitt Igoe
Interior of Pruitt Igoe
4. Balcony protected by a brise-soleil
A balcony has very important role in
making a living space complete. It allows
the user to have connection of what is
outside with just a few stepsAt each end
of the unit there is a balcony protected
by a brise-soleil that allows for cross
ventilation throughout the unit flowing
through the narrow bedrooms into the
double height space, emphasizing an
open volume rather than an open plan.
Hallway in Unite d’Habitation
Interior of Unite d’Habitation
Exterior view of Pruitt Igoe Exterior View of Unite d’Habitation
 Windows of Pruitt Igoe Windows of Unite d’Habitation

Communal Spaces in Pruitt Igoe Communal Spaces in Unite d’Habitation

PART IV – REFERENCES

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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/feb/26/pruitt-igoe-myth-film-review
2. Why the Pruitt-Igoe housing project failed. (2011, October 15). The Economist.
https://www.economist.com/prospero/2011/10/15/why-the-pruitt-igoe-housing-project-failed
3. AD classics: Pruitt-Igoe housing project / Minoru Yamasaki. (2017, May 15). ArchDaily.
https://www.archdaily.com/870685/ad-classics-pruitt-igoe-housing-project-minoru-yamasaki-
st-louis-usa-modernism
4. Behind ghetto walls. (n.d.). Google Books.
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7. Unité d'Habitation: Le corbusier's Proto-brutalist urban sky villages. (2018, February 26). 99%
Invisible. https://99percentinvisible.org/article/unite-dhabitation-le-corbusiers-proto-brutalist-
urban-sky-villages/
8. Unité d'Habitation: The brutalist boat. (2019, September 5). Declad. https://declad.com/unite-
dhabitation-the-brutalist-boat/
9. MILLAIS, M. (2015). A CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF THE DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, AND INFLUENCE OF
THE UNITÉ D’HABITATION, MARSEILLES, FRANCE.
10. MARMOT, A. F. (1981). The Legacy of Le Corbusier and High-Rise Housing. Built Environment
(1978-), 7(2), 82–95. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23288674
11. House plan: Keith Williams on Le corbusier's unite. (2015, 8). The Architects’ Journal.
https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/archive/house-plan-keith-williams-on-le-corbusiers-unite