The Alternate Corridor Technique in the Housing Project Between 1950 and 1970: Skip-Stop, Doorstep, and L’Espace Pivot

Between 1950 and 1970, large housing complexes demonstrated contrasting ways of using the “alternate corridor” project technique. Key words such as skip-stop, doorstep, and espace pivot were used to refer to singular spatial devices, responding to different understandings in architecture. Based on certain convictions of the Modern Movement in Architecture, architects were confident in promoting design innovations using this technique, initially aimed to reduce construction costs, in efficient “access distributors” spatial systems. However, some issues arose afterward, mainly concerning the social organization of the “territory,” intending to better connect the diverse “human scales.” Focused on the small scale of intermediate collective spaces, this article proposes a comparative critique of three case studies that share a common building design technique in the alternate corridor: Pruitt-Igoe, Robin Hood Gardens, and Le-Mirail, considered to be great achievements of that time but which nowadays have been put into question or even considered to be complete failures.