Rural Studio’s Assistant Research Professor Christian Ayala Lopez and Architecture’s Assistant Professor Jennifer Pindyck and have been awarded the Center for Architecture 2025 Arnold W. Brunner Grant for their research project, “All in the Family,” Recognizing New Typologies in Family-Owned Rural Cooperative Housing.

Their research looks at family-owned rural cooperative housing to create design typologies that address heirs’ property issues. In underserved rural communities, a historical lack of access to legal resources has left heirs’ properties— characterized by long-term informal shared ownership without clear titles— financially constrained and vulnerable to predatory practices. Families living on heirs’ properties face financial challenges and legal hurdles to building, but life on these shared properties also offers a kinship network that support family resilience. Christian’s and Jen’s research goal is to design a housing typology for multi-generational living on shared land, within a legal structure to improve financial access and build wealth.

Aimed at mid-career architects, Arnold W. Brunner Grants support research that contributes to the knowledge, teaching, or practice of the art and science of architecture. The AIA New York and the Center for Architecture’s joint Scholarship Committee assesses projects based on their engagement with contemporary local and global architectural issues and the utility of the research project’s end product.