Incremental Housing in Chester, NY

Incremental Housing in Chester

How can we plan for present and future needs

of Chester Agricultural Center, NY?

Conceptual Model: Incremental Housing

The incremental housing strategy explored in Design by Dignity addressed the cost of building dignifying farmworker housing through a phased strategy. How can design support the farmer in providing good quality housing to its workers? How can spaces be designed to address overcrowding, and flexible needs of the farmworkers? To ground some of these answers, a housing masterplan was developed for 32 housing units in the Chester Agricultural Center. A visit to the site informed the process of the concept development.

Chester Agricultural Center

Located in Chester, New York, the Chester Agricultural Center (CAC) is a cooperative hub that supports small and mid-scale farmers committed to ecological, equitable, and community-based food production. The Center provides shared farmland, infrastructure, and programs to help beginning and BIPOC farmers gain secure land access and build sustainable businesses. Its landscape includes cultivated fields, high tunnels, barns, sheds with colorful murals, and community gathering areas, creating a rich social and agricultural ecosystem.

Who is a farmworker in Chester?

The Chester Agricultural Center hosts a network of eight to twelve BIPOC-owned farms, each operating semi-independently while sharing land, infrastructure, and resources. Around forty-five workers live and work on site, including about thirty H-2A seasonal workers and others who reside there year-round with their families. The largest farm, Halal Pastures, employs fifteen Egyptian men who expressed the need for a dedicated prayer space and the wish to bring their families once visa permissions allow. The farm is actively assisting these workers in pursuing green cards, which could lead to larger households in the future, with some families having up to five children. This points to a growing demand for family-oriented housing alongside single-worker units. Additionally, as the farm plans to expand its acreage, the need for additional and adaptable worker housing will continue to increase.

These conditions inform the incremental housing strategy as a phased system that allows farmers to start with compact, dignified worker units and later expand them to accommodate families or additional workers as the community and landholdings grow. The design thus addresses two simultaneous forms of expansion:

Household growth: enabling units to evolve as workers bring families.
Agricultural expansion: allowing the site to accommodate more workers as farms acquire new land.

Site Impressions

Site Composite Drawing

The Chester site was only a short drive from the main agricultural center, though the shift in atmosphere was immediate. As we drove, newer private developments appeared along the road, modern houses and commercial structures that felt disconnected from the rural landscape around them. Their stark contrast to the farmland underscored the pressures of suburban expansion and rising costs within the region.

The farm itself was far larger than I had imagined. A wetland bisected the land, leading to a pond at its base, effectively dividing the site into two distinct halves. The topography created a sense of discovery; every rise and dip offered a new perspective, fields, tunnels, barns, and distant tree lines revealing themselves in sequence. From the higher southern end, one could see the patchwork of fields spread out below. In contrast, the northern side, closer to the main road, was louder and more exposed.

The sensory experience of the site was vivid, the stiff, crunchy grass underfoot, the straw bales hinting at seasonal cycles of production, the butterflies fluttering near the pond, and the cool, damp earth that anchored it all. The scattered trees framed the landscape into small visual pockets, guiding movement and attention. Two trees, one on either side of the pond, particularly caught my eye, they seemed to act as quiet anchors for the entire site, bridging both sides of the wetland with their presence.

Masterplan

Housing Unit

Straw as Biomaterial