TED SHELTON TRICIA STUTH University of Tennessee Ghost Houses and Trojan Horses The Ghost Houses project was not supposed to be possible—five units of housing and a studio in three structures on a one-quarter acre infill lot with an historic zoning overlay.Yet, by using the history of the site as a wedge, we were able to overcome ossified regulations to create a progressive project consistent with our interest in dense, walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods and architecture that is simultaneously responsive to both its locus and global environmental concerns. Through an improvised series of requests, meetings, and public hearings, the Ghost Houses became a project that explored the nature of zoning codes as a legal construct in which are embedded social, cultural, economical, and historical aspects of a community’s self image.This process revealed the power of collective memory and positioned architecture as a critical practice that responds to, carefully evaluates, and ultimately helps to shape common values. By conceptually separating interior from exterior and esthetics from form, the Ghost Houses act as a Trojan Horse for instigating, through built form, a new dialog about the possibilities of a once overlooked neighborhood. LB: I thought this project was interesting because it presented itself in such a broad context in the sense of history, zoning, design, material, and sustainability. Perhaps we could talk about a little bit about how the use of history and zoning as the design generator got this project so far. And then the design of the actual spaces, the materiality of the project, the flow between problematic spaces doesn’t seem to draw upon precedent as much as the typology of the project suggests. KA: The submission presents a thoughtful critique and interrogation of codes and a creative response. For practice, and in turn teaching, the authors explore use this investigation to make a ‘‘discourse’’ out of a seemingly banal condition of confronting building codes. It’s a Ghost House in concept and representational realization, but is it when built? AD: I thought that the first 75 percent of the project was incredibly rigorous in terms of its design 1. Polaroids of the original houses taken by the City Codes Violations Inspector were collected as part of condemnation proceedings in 1987. The Ghost Houses project began with curiosity about shallow depressions on either side of our home in Knoxville, TN. Documentation confirmed the existence of three structures built simultaneously on the parcel shortly after 1910. The three structures of nearly identical massing, distribution of space, materiality, and detail endured through the late 1980s when, following decades of disinvestment in inner-city neighborhoods, two of the three vacant structures were condemned and demolished. The third structure was renovated, in part using the re-salvaged remains of those demolished, and let as a duplex by its new owner. (Photos courtesy of the City of Knoxville.) Journal of Architectural Education, Ghost Houses and Trojan Horses 34 pp. 34–45 ª 2010 ACSA