Roughly 140 million Soviet-style housing units exist around the world. These generic, pre-fabricated, and often cooperatively-constructed buildings were typically employed irrespective of climate and context. Simultaneously, they represent a tremendous amount of embodied energy -an intrinsic human and material value that demands contemporary intervention. The Soviet type can be adapted to any locale if its potential is harnessed towards passive ends. Interventions, applied at expanding scales- beginning with that of the individual unit, graduating to entire buildings, and eventually neighborhoods, can, through aggregation and sensitivity to extant vernacular adaptations, catalyze urban-scale change. This incremental approach has the potential to interrupt the cycle of demolition while engaging the existing process of auto-construction. Cuba’s hot, humid climate presents a particularly challenging context for Soviet-style housing. Through the deployment of passive systems and vernacular sensibilities, currently unsuitable structures can be transformed into housing that provides thermal comfort and accommodates a variety of residents. The project addresses existing structures by first removing a centrally-located staircase, extracting the point access element of each building and placing it at a distance of 10’ beyond the exterior wall. This staircase, connected to a 10’ deep exterior balcony, re-orients the dwelling unit’s entry while simultaneously creating generous and inhabitable covered outdoor living room. An addition floor is added at the top of each structure, increasing each building’s occupiable space by 20-25 percent. This unit is outfitted with a large roof that funnels rainwater into the void left behind by the existing walk-up stair. This space goes from an entry landing to an interior balcony where laundry can be hung and through which stack effect cooling can occur. Ground floor units are expanded outward similarly and, when necessary, converted into live/work configurations.