“The Post Office Is Now a House” positions the United States Postal Service’s national network of 35,000 post offices as a site for exploring two progressive policies: the Green New Deal and the Homes for All bill, which call for updating existing buildings and constructing 9.5 million social housing units, respectively. By integrating social housing and other public programs, such as day cares or credit unions, into post office sites, the post office can continue to play a strong role in local civic life.
Adapting post offices to meet these policy objectives requires a design approach that is at once repeatable, and thus nationally relevant, and highly specific, responsive to community aspirations and site constraints. Referencing the 20th-century history of constructing post offices based on standard federal plans, the project proposes a series of “assemblies,” common ways that old post offices can relate to new housing, which can be adapted for designs on different sites.
