The Cubes: On Security and Sanctuary.

Oakland, CA

How can a home offer both refuge and connection?

This proposal for 140 homes in Oakland considers survivors of human trafficking, survivors of domestic violence, and young residents. It asks how housing can offer room for retreat alongside opportunities to meet. Rotated volumes, planted thresholds, and shared spaces form a sequence between the city and the individual home, with different degrees of privacy along the way.

Physical model of white residential blocks with red connecting volumes, planted courtyards, and surrounding Oakland buildings — The Cubes / A neighbourhood of smaller places
Separate residential volumes gather around a network of shared spaces. The model makes their connections visible within the larger urban block.

01 / From the street

Find a smaller scale within the city.

The Broadway site study begins with a contrast: streets shaped around cars, and the smaller places where people stop, sit, or talk. Recessed shopfronts and planted seating suggest how an urban edge can become inhabitable. The proposal draws the buildings back from Broadway and places cafés and a bookstore at ground level, connecting the housing to neighbourhood life through a series of more intimate thresholds.

Urban collage with stairs, recessed shopfronts, seating, planting, and a pink route connecting spaces at different heights — Street study / Places along a route
The collage assembles small settings for public life. Its highlighted route links entrances, steps, and places to pause rather than treating the street as a single open field.

A quieter place begins before the front door.

02 / Layers of sanctuary

Give privacy more than one boundary.

Three spatial layers organise the proposal. Low walls, sheltered entrances, and planting define quieter outdoor spaces at ground level. Connections above link groups of residential buildings. Smaller rotated volumes introduce places to gather within and along their edges. These layers explore how separation and contact can coexist, from the surrounding street to the spaces closest to home.

Two rows of red and black diagrams comparing spatial separation, second-floor connections, shared unit spaces, and programme distribution — Three spatial layers / One organising idea
The first three columns trace separation, connection, and smaller shared spaces from concept to site. The fourth maps the residential programme: HT denotes human-trafficking survivors, DV domestic-violence survivors, and Youth young residents.

Ground-floor plan showing separate residential volumes, planted courtyards, entrances, and rooms along the surrounding streets — At ground level / A sequence of thresholds
The spaces between buildings carry the transition from the street toward residential entrances. Planting and changes in direction give these approaches a more enclosed scale.

03 / Between neighbours

Make connection a place to spend time.

Shared routes extend between buildings and into smaller gathering spaces. At upper levels, rotated boxes sit around circulation cores and along the building edges, connecting corridors to communal rooms and outdoor platforms. The plan and cutaway show how these places sit beside the homes: the route to a room can also offer a view, a balcony, or a place to meet a neighbour.

Third-floor plan with housing grouped around circulation cores, angled shared rooms, terraces, and a programme key — Third floor / Homes around shared spaces
The rotated geometry opens the residential groups toward shared edges. Read the common rooms and terraces alongside the more regular arrangements of individual dwellings.

Cutaway axonometric of residential blocks revealing apartments, internal circulation, communal spaces, and terraces — Inside the blocks / Routes and rooms
The cutaway connects the plan to the inhabited volume, revealing how individual homes and common spaces are arranged across the site.

Rendering of people in a planted courtyard beneath bridges connecting pale residential buildings — Between the blocks / A place to pause
At ground level, a tree, seating, and the shelter of the buildings give the shared route a place to stop. The perspective studies the atmosphere of the proposed outdoor spaces.

04 / Room for retreat

Bring the question back to the home.

The unit studies vary the relationship between private rooms and shared space. Youth housing includes a shared kitchen, while the wider study explores a range of dwelling sizes for different households. The rotated box remains a common organising device around the circulation core. At the scale of a room, the ambition becomes simple: a place to be on one's own, with opportunities for shared life nearby.

Housing studies comparing rotated-box diagrams, cutaway dwelling clusters, and apartment plans for youth, HT, and DV groups — Unit studies / Different homes, a shared logic
Diagrams, cutaways, and plans compare the dwelling arrangements. The geometry creates variations in communal space while preserving distinct rooms and homes.

Interior rendering of a private bedroom with a bed, chair, planting, and daylight through tall windows — A room of one's own
Daylight and a view frame a quiet domestic interior. This is the most intimate end of the project's sequence of spaces.

Interior rendering looking through glazing toward a shared planted space with seating and people around a table — A place to be together
A planted gathering space offers another setting close to home. Together, the two views express the proposal's interest in both retreat and contact.

Street / Threshold / Home

Let refuge and connection coexist.

The Cubes approaches sanctuary through a sequence of places at different scales. Planted approaches, shared routes, and individual rooms give the housing a range of settings for private and collective life.

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Location: Oakland, CA
Studio: UC Berkeley ARCH 201 Studio project
Instructor: Mia Zinni
Collaboration: Individual Work
Area: 14,500㎡

Next projectSosuke Fujimoto's residential conversion.