Dingbats 2.0
Residential · Multi-family housing
2025 · Penn State
With Setareh Farashzadeh and Yasaman Ghaffarian
Dingbats 2.0 is a modular housing system for a typical California lot, designed for the 2025 Small Lots, Big Impact competition. It draws on two precedents, the Los Angeles Dingbat, with its box-like units stacked on a standard plot, and the Eames House, with its modular steel frame, infill panels, and equal weight given to open space. The lot is split into three homes, each planned on 12 x 18 ft modules by a set of rules that always leaves part of the grid open, and built to be quick to make and assemble.
The lot is 50 ft wide. After setbacks of 15 ft front and rear and 4 ft at the sides, the buildable area is divided into three equal sub-parcels, one home each. Each sub-parcel takes a 3 x 2 grid of six 12 x 18 ft modules, a size that can hold a bedroom, a kitchen, or a living room, so every unit type is built from the same piece.
The rules add one module at a time, and the dots are the connection points where the next one can attach. Rule 01 makes one module the living room (red), Rule 02 places kitchen and dining (yellow) beside it, and Rule 03 adds a bedroom (blue) at an open connection. Rule 04 adds further bedrooms but always leaves at least one module open, two for one- and two-bedroom units, for daylight, cross-ventilation, and planting, or for a future bedroom or accessory dwelling unit.
The exploded axonometric lifts the rooms off the steel frame, which follows the same 12 x 18 ft grid, with living (01, 02), kitchen and dining (03), bedrooms (04, 05), and a bathroom (06). Types 01 to 04 are four of the resulting layouts, in the same colours. A one-bedroom unit takes three modules (650 sq ft), a two-bedroom four (865 sq ft), and a three-bedroom five (1,080 sq ft).
On the lot, the three homes sit in a row within the steel frame, and the exterior stairs, in green, rise between them. The rooms keep the colours of the rules, red for living, yellow for kitchen and dining, and blue for bedrooms and bathrooms.
Inside, the living room, the kitchen and dining room, and the bedrooms follow the module layout. Walls and ceilings are lined in timber, the outer walls are glazed full height, and glass partitions separate the rooms. Built-in shelving and storage define the spaces, a device taken from the Eames House.
Drawings and views
- Street elevation of the three homes in their steel frame, with exterior stairs between them
- Site subdivision, with setbacks, three equal sub-parcels, and the 3 x 2 grid of 12 x 18 ft modules
- Inside a unit, with timber lining and full-height glazing
- Inside a unit, with timber lining and full-height glazing
- Inside a unit, with timber lining and full-height glazing
- Shape grammar Rules 01 to 04 and the resulting variations, coloured by room
- Exploded axonometric of rooms 01 to 06 over the steel frame, and unit Types 01 to 04
- The three homes on the lot, with the exterior stairs in green