ARCHITECTURE

al qualities, like the grouping of bedrooms, and intangible
ones, like the feeling of “home.” Government instruments
like the AHS are used by real estate developers and investors
to evaluate the market. But these instruments also
measure and manage qualitative differences that appear
at the intersection of households and housing units. From
this perspective, they enable us to glimpse a statistical
imagination in which populations are divided according to
the wealth they possess, and that wealth, in turn, is determined
by how they are housed. In a circular fashion, that
wealth also limits the field of possible housing alternatives.
In that sense, each house, each apartment, each bedroom,
and each bathroom is an integer, a statistical unit by which
the household it contains—we should really say, the household
it produces and maintains—is situated on a spectrum
of inequality that, in turn, governs the way we live.
2.1.4 The Household
The statistical unit of the household is therefore
actually a set of intersecting material units, including humans,
houses, bedrooms, bathrooms, cars, and cities. Let
us call this set “architecture.” Looking at it more closely
enables us to grasp how the spectrum of inequality is
maintained in a manner that reproduces certain norms
and categories in order for the real estate system to do its
work. In what follows, a series of cases show concretely
how the principles and practices of real estate development
govern the construction and inhabitation of new
housing. Moving across the country, and up and down the
inequality spectrum, they take a partial inventory of building
types, markets, and financial models through which
we can see more clearly the diverse ways in which housing
options are defined by (but also as) capital. Even in the
most disparate of contexts, the discourse of the household
repeats architecturally, delineating the social unit by
which wealth is measured.
On the opposite coast from New York by Gehry,
but about ten miles from the offices of Gehry Partners LLP,
sits Cloverdale 749, in Los Angeles, designed by Lorcan
O’Herlihy Architects (LOHA). In June 2013, the website
la.curbed.com described the building’s six available condominium
units, listing from about $749,000 to $999,000,
as having “open-plan living spaces, Caesarstone countertops,
under-cabinet LED lighting in kitchens, carpeting
in the bedrooms, and completely separated walls to keep
the noise down.” 31 The website toplacondos.com added:
“An experience of light, flow and true craftsmanship
throughout interesting architectural spaces defines Cloverdale.
Comfortably refined. Impeccably designed. Contemporary
luxury with European style, paired with a
warmth you simply don’t find in modern condominium
residences today . . . 749 Cloverdale is a new standard in
condominium living.” 32
Floor plans compress bathrooms, utilities, and
stairs (for duplexes) in a central core, maximizing the
openness of the surrounding spaces, which are screened
on either end with a glass and perforated, ventilating
metal skin. Kitchens are galley type, with open islands.
Balconies and stairs wrap the exterior, and parking on the
urban site is underground.
Assuming a 20 percent down payment, the
monthly mortgage of about $3,700 on the higher-end
units puts the owners of these units somewhere close to
the top 10 percent of earners, with a household income
of at least $130,000. Assuming a mortgage paid in full
(i.e. full ownership) but no other financial assets (which
is unlikely), the owners would certainly be in the top 20
percent in terms of net wealth but probably much higher,
according to available data that put the median wealth of
that group at about $630,000. 33 For comparison, in 2012
The New York Times estimated the household income of
the top 1 percent to start at around $380,000 but their net
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