Reconsidering the Shotgun House: Between Preservation, Experimentation, and Displacement

Alligator / buildingstudio. Image © Will CrockerEmerging in port cities and working-class neighborhoods throughout the nineteenth century, the shotgun house became a durable response to density, climate, and constrained urban parcels, becoming one of the defining domestic forms of the Southern United States. Its narrow footprint, sequential plan, and deeply shaded porches produced a spatial logic that was economical and environmentally responsive before either term became central to archite