Our proposal for an affordable housing complex in a former industrial zone seeks to shift from the heroic use of steel to a softer, smoother state. We propose that pressure forming metal via stamping and tooling processes can advance steel as a more subtle and seamless alternative to tectonic techniques. Sheet materials offer sophisticated shaping opportunities, demand lower energy use, and provide lateral resistance due to their planar and stress-skinned capabilities. In order to test these techniques, we imagine this design as an innovative use of blanking, stamping, drawing, and piercing methods common to automotive and other industrial manufacturing. A series of customized unitized-frames function as vertical supports running the length of the building, while a system of double-layered, stress-skinned floor plates comprise the horizontal structure. Lateral support is afforded by external skins and panels serving both structural and shading roles.

Pressing serves as an activity for the smoothness of this reconsidered technology. It also imagines the bumpy yet urgent matter of housing opportunity in urban areas of gentrification.