Housing + Building: Residential Architectures in and Around New London
Andrei Harwell, executive director of the Yale Urban Design Workshop and the 2025-26 Krane Art History Scholar-in-Residence, will introduce the New London Building Dossiers project, a collaboration with Connecticut College students.
In conversation with Paige Holleman CC’27, Charlotte Kille CC’26, and Hope Kisakye CC’26.
Across Connecticut, most of us inhabit physical structures of the past, with 73% of homes built before 1980. Our concept of “housing” is influenced by residential types that emerged from specific historical and material conditions. Local examples from the New London area reveal how distinct building forms arose historically and how they continue to set the stage for the daily rituals of contemporary life. This academic year, Connecticut College students compiled carefully researched and creative Building Dossiers on several local residences. Their work, and the work of Yale’s Housing Connecticut affordable housing clinic, invites us to speculate how architectural design can shape emergent lifestyles of the future.
Introduced by Anna Vallye, Associate Professor of Art History and Architectural Studies and author of Urban Renewal and Highway Construction in New London, 1941-1975 (2020).
Speakers
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Andrei Harwell
Andrei Harwell, AIA, is an architect, urban designer, and planner, whose work explores the strategic value of design in addressing contemporary challenges facing cities and urban regions. Since 2006, he has taught at the Yale School of Architecture, where he directs the Yale Urban Design Workshop. Andrei leads community-based planning and design projects across Connecticut and teaches courses on affordable housing, urban design, and morphology. In 2024 he was the recipient of the AIA/ACSA Housing Design Education Award, and in 2026, the Seton Ivy award. He is the 2025-2026 Krane Art History Scholar-in-Residence at Connecticut College.