5. Case Study: The story behind America's infamous "Gentrification Building"

In this post we will be taking a trip to the United States, both physically as well as digitally. There has been an online trend, on the social media platform known as TikTok, that goes about the random identification of a new residential development that is hastily erect in a neighborhood. The trend’s relevance comes from these developments' architectural style being widely regarded as generic, artificial & modern due to its rather boxy frame as well as its apparent mass production.

Figure 1: A collage of the various TikTok posts in this viral trend.

(retrieved from: https://tinyurl.com/baekf3mr)

These apartment buildings are thus categorized as “Gentrification buildings” by TikTok users and comments on these videos are along the lines of “fast food architecture” and “get ready for a Starbucks coming soon” (a pretty accurate joke it must be said). To be completely objective this trend was not born out of falsity, in most cases the introduction of new housing stock signals raised local land value and thus raised rentals due to the upscaling of surrounding land uses, symptoms synonymous with Gentrification.

Figure 2: Visual representation of the architectural style in question.

(image retrieved from: https://tinyurl.com/2e6xdz3s)

Further descriptions of this typology follow a comical understanding that this is an architecture style inspired by computer aided design software or city-building games: (Sisson, 2018)

Revittecture – (a word formed of the computer design software Revit and Architecture)

Simcityism – (based on the game Sim City)

Minecraftman – (mixing the famous Minecraft game with Craftsmanship)

McUrbanism – (brilliant usage of the McDonald’s fast-food reference)

In this trend existed a, now-deleted, video about a version of this infamous building typology found in Camden, New Jersey. Through a quick googling of the new building and research of local property records it turns out that this specific building is part of an affordable housing project aiming to fight the housing crisis in the United States, going against the popular stereotype it is believed to fall under (Demsas, 2021).

Figure 3: Location of the "Gentrification" building in question - 902 Ferry Avenue, Camden, New Jersey.

Within the chapter "Abandonment, Gentrification, and Displacement: The Linkages in New York City" the author, Peter Marcuse, provides a broader context for understanding the challenges and perceptions associated with new housing developments. The trend on TikTok reflects the public's concerns about the potential consequences of such developments, linking back to issues discussed in Marcuse's chapter.

Patrick Sisson (2018) writes that the “Gentrification Building” and its McUrbanism style (brilliant, just brilliant) is simply the cheapest method property developers have devised for mass construction of affordable housing that aligns with restraints, such as height limits and fire/safety requirements, set by government in the United States. This method is known as the 5 Over 1 or 1 plus 5, a multi-storey building with 5 levels of wood-framed construction over 1 level with a concrete base (Demises, 2021).

Figure 4: Example of the 1 plus 5 building method.

(retrieved from: https://tinyurl.com/2e6xdz3s)

The 5 overhead floors are commonly found to be the apartment units while the ground floor concrete level usually contains the mixed-use addition of commercial space or simply being the building’s parking lot. The infamous building façade? It’s light-frame wood construction, only using flat windows and paneling that can be found on every side of the building? All well researched construction materials that allow developers to construct as affordably as possible, thus allowing for as much housing as possible (Demises, 2021).

And herein lies the untold side of the story that remains far less popular than the other, maybe the industry of private development may too be victim of overgeneralization and that not all private developers are going out of their way to gentrify neighborhoods. In this case, an entire generation of developers are tasked with the goal of supplying an insatiable demand of housing. It is not surprising that they simply did their research and mass produced a product that not only satisfies market prices but somewhat proves to be architecturally appealing, albeit the genetic Revittecture (how do people even think up this stuff honestly? such a fitting word).

In fact, the mass production of a new affordable architectural construction style is not new to urban landscapes of American cities, and neither is the widespread disapproval from its citizens. In Suleiman Osman’s book, “The invention of Brownstone Brooklyn”, a similar narrative is painted about the emergence of what today is regarded as the authentic soul of New York streets in Brooklyn. You cannot find a film or television series based in New York that does not set itself on the streets in front of the iconic brownstone façade which the city’s row housing is constructed in.

figure 5: Visual representation of New York's classic Brownstone row housing.

(retrieved from: https://tinyurl.com/pwphvu5p)

This architectural style is now synonymous with the iconic city but during the 19th century, when New York was a sea of homes with wooden facades? Osman (2011) writes about how “…contemporaries dismissed the Brownstone as modern and artificial...” further stating that this, now authentic, typology that private developers were mass producing, thanks to the mechanical age, was dehumanizing – Ringing any bells maybe?

figure 6: visual representation of the dominant wooden housing typology that preceded the iconic Brownstone facades of today.

(retrieved from: https://tinyurl.com/24r8swaj)

For more information on this story visit Vox.com's episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEsC5hNfPU4&t=156s

Reference List:

Sisson, P., 2018. why do all new apartment buildings look the same. [Online] Available at: https://archive.curbed.com/2018/12/4/18125536/real-estate-modern-apartment-architecture [Accessed 2023].

Demsas, J., 2021. In defense of the “gentrification building”. [Online] Available at: https://www.vox.com/22650806/gentrification-affordable-housing-low-income-housing [Accessed 2023].

Osman, S., 2011. The invention of brownstone Brooklyn: Gentrification and the search for authenticity in postwar New York. Oxford University Press.