Title: Row : trajectories through the shotgun house /
Authors: Brown, David, 1965-; Williams, William.; Belcher, Nathaniel Quincy.
Publisher: Rice University School of Architecture,
Year: 2004
Subjects: Row houses.; Vernacular architecture.; African Americans Housing; African Americans Dwellings.
Abstract: "The copious presence of the shotgun house in Third, Fourth, and Fifth Wards, historically African-American neighborhoods directly adjacent to downtown Houston, has provided a basis for work that re-evaluates this house form. In a series of paintings in the 1980s, Houston artist John Biggers identified the shotgun house as a community enabler. Project Row Houses demonstrates this capability through its community revitalization effort, which consists of artist's installations, child after-school care and its Young Mothers Residential Program, all in a cluster of twenty-two row houses. The 15th round of installations in the eight Artist's Houses at Project Row Houses offered a unique opportunity for further study of the shotgun house. The architects and designers invited to develop installations could explore its ability to enable community as well as other characteristics and qualities by working directly within a shotgun house variation. [This book] documents the installations and the presentations from a symposium that preceded their opening. The collected work, which builds on the work of Biggers and Project Row Houses, assesses the historical and cultural significance of the shotgun house, and its material, organizational, and spatial properties, while revealing that the shotgun house has continued relevance as an informant of contemporary architecture and urbanism"--Back cover.
Contents: House art : merging public and private / bell hooks -- The shotgun cottage in Houston / Stephen Fox -- Above, beneath, beyond, and between / LaVerne Wells-Bowie -- Installations and African-American design practices -- Awakening : quilt top patterns in the third dimension / Walter Hood -- One week, eight hours / Felecia Davids -- Between memory and amnesia / Craig Barton -- Passing time / AR+D unigroup -- and other latent uses / David Brown -- Intimate landscapes (of the shotgun house) / SUMO -- Bordering / Sheryl Tucker de Vasquez -- Making do : beyond getting by / WPa (Williams+Pizzini architects) -- Eight memories / Mabel Wilson -- Scattered houses : a competition for small houses / Nathaniel Belcher -- Remembering John Biggers / Alvia Wardlaw -- Afterword : Area denial technologies / Christopher Hight.