Flexible Housing for Seasonal Communities
Matthew Gilbert
2025
2nd Prize: Britton Memorial Awards 2025
Summer Friends is a collective housing prototype that combines year-round residents and short-term rentals in one structure and also aims to quietly densify the primarily single-family city of Newport, RI. The ‘solid floors’ are for permanent residents and can expand into the seasonal floors above or below in the offseason, expanding their livable area. The seasonal floors have an open, flexible plan, utilize low-cost construction, and capitalize on passive cooling and heating through expansive folding plexiglass accordion doors. The project is a proposal for seasonal communities based on sharing rather than real estate commodification and sprawl.