Housing beyond Extraction explores how vacant buildings can be repurposed for affordable housing beyond speculative development. Informed by real policy precedents, such as São Paulo’s social function of property framework, the project treats vacant or underused property not simply as idle real estate, but as an urban resource that can be redirected toward social use. Building on this logic, the project proposes a framework organized around three interdependent, non-speculative entities: a Land Bank, which secures access to underused urban sites; a Housing Bank, which manages spaces within vacant buildings for long-term affordable co-operative housing; and a Material Bank, which stewards reclaimed building materials for the retrofitting of such structures in the buildings. Using the vacant Oceanwide Plaza development in DTLA as a testing ground, the project shows how the open building space(Housing Bank) can be transformed into flexible housing through a modular system built with reclaimed components (Material Bank), linking circular governance, design, and construction to the production of long-term affordable housing beyond extraction.
