Architecture Commons^™

Design And Delivery Of National Housing In The Uae: An Alternative Approach, Basem Eid Mohamed, Mohamed Elkaftangui, Rana Zureikat, Rund Hiyasat

All Works

The provision of national housing to citizens in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is considered a crucial topic. Over the past four decades, the process of developing national housing has emerged into multiple housing programs and schemes, all with the same aim of offering affordable and high-quality housing to citizens, in addition to meeting the needs of local families regarding spatial configurations while maintaining cultural values. However, despite all these efforts, the question has always remained: are the offered housing practices suited for family needs, socioeconomic trends, and environmental challenges? This study aims to offer an alternative approach for the …

Adaptive Reuse Of The Suburban Office Building, Olivia Mora

Architecture Theses

My thesis addresses the current issues of office vacancy and the housing shortage. Living in the Portland, Maine area my entire life, I’ve noticed a lot of gentrification happening in the city downtown, including my dad’s little neighborhood he grew up in. I want to create a space where people of all incomes levels have the opportunity to live in.

After a thorough GIS analysis, the ideal site was determined to be 300 Southborough Drive in South Portland. This is only 10-15 minutes from downtown Portland. When adapting a vacant, standalone suburban office building like this one, there are a …

Reviving The Plan An Implementation Of Historic Concepts, Jared Mcgowan

Architecture Theses

For my thesis I would like to research historic concepts and ideas of plans, and how they could apply to residential housing layouts today. Through precedent ideas and example projects, I would be able to identify architectural moves made by famous architects of the past that would have real value today, but have since gone unused except in the projects in which they were created. Through projects examined in architectural history classes, to projects suggested by professors, I will research a wide range of styles and ideas to include in a modern project.

I will rely on historic typologies, centered …

Mass Customization Of Housing: A Framework For Harmonizing Individual Needs With Factory Produced Housing, Basem Eid Mohamed, Carlo Carbone

All Works

Integrated processes for design and fabrication have guided mass customization of architectural systems and components. Providing affordable and accessible housing, a vital segment of the building industry, is a multifaceted process that witnessed various manifestations towards individualization over the past few decades. Design flexibility in housing systems is becoming a crucial aspect, informed by consumers’ lifestyles, demographic patterns, and lifecycles change at a rapid pace. As the housing market demands more personalized, efficient, and agile strategies, prefabricated building systems have always presented a viable alternative for flexibility and cus-tomization, following a rise of interest in the last decade focused on …

Prototyping Attainability: A Guide For Incremental Density In Communities, Quinlan Mcfadden

Masters in Architecture Program: Theses

In the absence of direct public investment solutions, Prototyping Attainability, explores how the combination of building typologies and land uses can achieve attainable housing strategies by striking a balance between shared community spaces and optimizing density, without disrupting the existing residential landscape. Through this exploration of research and design, strategic changes in zoning, regulation and typologies will be brought forward to aid the framework process of solutions to the housing crisis not only within Nebraskan communities, but in communities nationwide.

Restoring Lost Heritage, Lewis Culliver

Masters in Architecture Program: Theses

One of the best streets to explore in Omaha is N. 24th Street. Many buildings showcase larger than life, vibrant murals that express the creative nature and spirit of this part of historic North Omaha. The murals represent a healing element for the community; many murals cover structures that are in various states of disrepair. Community gardens have risen to fill voids left by traumatic development practices, such as the implementation of the north freeway.

Despite having lost a large part of its heritage, including hundreds of homes and businesses that were destroyed to make way for the north freeway, …

Bellingham's Housing Ecosystem, Malene Garcia

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

The goal of my project was to understand what puts people at risk of becoming unhoused and what solutions are the most effective in combating and preventing houselessness.

To figure this out, I used Bellingham as a case study. I did research on homelessness in general, and then used that to guide my research specific to Bellingham. I focused on the causes of houselessness, the demographics of those experiencing houselessness, and the challenges that they face. Then, I researched solutions. To supplement this research, and get different perspectives specific to Bellingham, I interviewed people working in three different organizations: The …

Planning, Aging, And Loneliness: Reviewing Evidence About Built Environment Effects, Yingying Lyu, Ann Forsyth

Geography & Planning Faculty Publications

Large numbers of people in many countries report being lonely with rates highest among the very old. Does the built environment affect loneliness among older people and if so, how? Using a scoping review, we examined associations between loneliness and built environments at the block, neighborhood, and city scales The (a) neighborhood environment has received most attention. Research has also examined (b) urban contexts, (c) housing, and (d) transportation access. Findings are mixed with the stronger evidence that local resources, walkability, overall environment quality, housing options, and nearby transportation alternatives can help combat loneliness.

Built Environment And Self-Rated Health: Comparing Young, Middle-Aged, And Older People In Chengdu, China, Yingying Lyu, Ann Forsyth, Steven Worthington

Geography & Planning Faculty Publications

Objectives: This article explores how the building-scale built environment is associated with selfrated health, examining differences in this association among younger, middle-aged, and older age groups. Features examined included building type, building condition, and sidewalk presence in front of dwellings. Background: Understanding how the relationships between built environments and health vary across age groups helps to build a healthy environment for all. However, most studies have concentrated on the neighborhood or indoor environment, rather than whole buildings, and few have compared age groups. Methods: This study analyzed survey data from 1,019 adults living in 40 neighborhoods in Chengdu, China, recruited …

Yimby And Covid-19, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Discusses whether the COVID-19 pandemic strengthens the case for the pro-housing YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) movement.

America’S Finest Housing Crisis: Racialized Housing & Suburban Development, Vicenta Martinez Govea

McNair Summer Research Program

U.S. Government operations between 1940-1950 brought unprecedented direct and indirect employment opportunities to San Diego, exacerbating an already growing housing shortage. To accommodate the thousands of new defense workers, the government produced the largest defense housing project to date in the small neighborhood of Linda Vista. However, this opportunity and largesse was extended primarily to a select group of white working-class families who had access to defense jobs and, consequently, subsidized housing. Military presence in San Diego during World War II shaped the design of homes and exclusively allocated housing, as both shelter and financial instrument, to white working-class families …

Micro-Housing In Seattle Update: Combating “Seattle-Ization”, Taylor Haines

Seattle University Law Review SUpra

No abstract provided.

The State Of Affordable Housing In Pierce County, Ali Modarres, Hannah Miner, Anthony Hoffmann

Professional Reports

Affordable housing is a complex issue, requiring significant regional and metropolitan level attention. There are very few cities that can claim to have succeeded in solving this problem. However, the policy toolkit to engage with this particular challenge has grown over the last few decades. Given the diminishing role of the federal government in building and financing affordable/social housing, it has fallen to tribes, states, counties, and cities to tackle this challenge on their own or through collaboration. The State of Washington and Pierce County governments are no exception. Meanwhile, as the number of cost-burdened households has increased over time, …

Beyond The Market: A “Public-Commons-Partnership” For Housing, Arielle Lawson

Publications and Research

The commodification of housing has led to new levels of unaffordability for tenants all over the country. With skyrocketing rents and an explosion of homelessness, we are faced with the glaring failures of our capitalist housing system to meet people’s most basic human needs. Recognizing the inherent limitations of “affordable housing” within a profit-driven system, we need a paradigm shift around housing that can change the terms of the debate, and advance a real alternative to the speculative market. A growing housing justice movement — combined with a renewed politicization of tenants — is leading the way. From new rent …

The Future Living Experience In Vail, Co, Maikao Vang

Architecture Theses

Employee housing has become a struggling issue with the U.S. ski industry due to the fluctuation of climate, location and the industry known to have one of the highest carbon footprint. Today, many ski resorts are resorting ways to reduce their carbon footprint by using more environmental friendly equipments and incorporating all-seasons activities. As ski resorts starts to incorporate more activities into their resorts; the architecture and experience has been re-elevated as well.

This thesis project explores the limit of architecture and experience of putting employees and tourism experiences together. The two programs were developed and the similar program was …

Best Practices For Urban Coliving Communities, Rachel Osborne

Interior Design Program: Theses

Coliving, a new typology of housing design, has recently been gaining in popularity. Coliving is a form of rental housing that seeks to create community among its residents by providing features such as extensive shared spaces and community managers paired with typically small, furnished private spaces. Little architectural or interior design research is available to describe this emerging typology, and no best-practices or guiding principles exist to aid designers in ­making informed decisions when designing or evaluating coliving spaces.

This thesis uses a mixed-methods approach to understand the composition of existing coliving facilities as well as the motivations and preferences …

Spinks, Martha (Fa 1179), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only of Folklife Archives Project 1179. Student paper titled “The Lucas Homestead: A Study ofTraditional Farm Structures” in which Martha Spinks investigatesthe origins and functions of a Sand Hill farm owned by HerschelLucas in Warren County, Kentucky. The structure, which was constructed by Luther Parrish in 1820, began as a single-pen log cabin; however, additional units, such as a smoke house, storage rooms, bedrooms, and a chimney, were built by succeeding owners. Spinks also describes materials used during the construction of the main building and other outlying structures, describes the purpose of several locations on the property, and …

Housing Availability, Accessibility And Affordability For Nebraska's Rural Aging Populations, Jordan G. Grummert Rasmussen

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses and Student Projects

Rural America and the nation as a whole has entered a phase of significant demographic change, as the number of Americans over the age of 65 is estimated to double by 2050. Nebraska counties and the state are, too, experiencing this shift in the age demographic. As the population ages, consideration must be given to the housing options for older adults, specifically those who reside and wish to remain in rural areas.

While broad consideration is given to either population aging or housing in rural areas, there is limited county level analysis adjoining these demographic and housing realities. This study …

An Evidence-Based Approach To Designing Low-Income Housing Communities, Kaitlin Ward

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

In the field of interior design, functionality and aesthetics are combined to create spaces that are beautiful, but also serve a variety of purposes. Broadly categorized into residential and commercial sectors, interior design considers the health and wellness of users in a space, and strives to improve the standard of living. Quality interior design is often treated as a luxury afforded only to the wealthy, although the field can and should be applied to benefit a wider demographic. Intelligent design and space planning can be used as a tool for community-building, especially among populations often overlooked due to reasons such …

Home-By Us: Togethernest Alternative Practice, Kristen M. Schulte

Architecture Masters of Science Program: Theses

Responding to the affordable housing crisis, the proposed practice leverages tools typically associated with internet-based startups and technology companies to assemble teams and build efficiencies into the building procurement process. This approach facilitates access for an income demographic that would not normally engage an architect. Through a process like online dating, the practice assembles small groups of owner-developers to design, finance, and build their own homes. Participating households are advised on location and project approach based on their self-reported preferences; and matched with others with similar preferences. Collaborative mass customization of each home is achieved through a mix of online …

Regenerative Refugee Housing: Creating Temporary Housing With Low Environmental Impact, Erika Guldner

Architecture Thesis Prep

Refugee settlements often have a negative environ­mental impact; by promoting options for sustainable development from the outset, this can be avoided. A plan for a refugee settlement was made, along with a plan for the individual residential units. To expedite the construction process, units were divided into compo­nents. These components could be easily assembled on site. Once the refugee settlement is no longer needed, components can be used for other purposes, such as, affordable housing or the components themselves can be broken down to be either recycled or used for other purposes.

Learning From The Informal: Designing A New Housing Typology For Informal Development In Cairo, Cherif Farid

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis examines what to design when designing for the informal and questions the role of the architect. The project combines the inherent qualities of the informal; self-built, incremental construction, and flexibility of spatial uses, with alternative urban design strategies.

The design strategy is to control the ground plane and roof scape, while leaving an open frame in between to be incrementally filled with housing. This frame allows residents to voice their identity by physically constructing their homes. It introduces an urban system that is composed of blocks that consist of an aggregation of identical units. The blocks are connected …

@The_New_House: An Online-Offline Manifesto, Ana Paola Hernandez Derbez, Domenica Velasco

Architecture Senior Theses

The house, is one of the most fundamental architectural archetypes, has long been used as unbuilt or built manifestos to declare the avant-garde of the discipline. As designers, we need to re-visualize design concepts to create architecture that integrates and corresponds to the way we dwell. Innovating design in the same way technology and digitalization have been innovating production and the way we live. This thesis investigates a return to the design of a house as a manifesto, focusing on today’s advanced modes of fabrication and evolving ways of living to challenge the current design mindset.

Emergency Homes, Denise A. Lee

Architecture Senior Theses

“Designers cannot just stand by and watch as the refugee crisis unfolds,” and although architects and designers can’t save the world, through design, we can alleviate consequences of scarcity. It’s not about creating a structure that will withstand the ends of time or endure the most extreme climate, it’s about how to respond in an emergency with the most geographically intelligent prototype that utilizes the utmost importance of on site materials so the bare minimum of an instruction manual or few key tools to offset distribution obstacles. This thesis is aimed to design for the 99 in disaster relief.

Open Source Architecture: Redefining Residential Architecture In Islamabad, Mariam Yaqub

Architecture Theses

Islamabad, a planned city, has grown rapidly since its conception in the 1960’s but it has not followed its predetermined fate but rather grown haphazardly due to the lack of infrastructure available to implement Doxiadis’s master plan. The city was unable to meet the housing requirements of the people causing them to build gated communities on the outskirts of Islamabad and its sister city, Rawalpindi. The market demands caused city prices to rise exponentially, increasing the economic divide between the social classes. The city which was once supposed to reflect diversity of social classes became home to the elite and …

Learning From The Informal, Cherif Farid

Architecture Thesis Prep

Architecture could learn from the socio-cultural norms of informal Cairo and could implement professional expertise to create a new housing typology that achieves the people’s needs.

Housing 20 million people and still growing, Cairo mirrors the global phenomenon of unplanned urban growth. The people have been forced to construct their own dwelling units as the government fails to provide them shelter. Approximately 65 percent of the population of Cairo lives in so-called informal housing: four to ten story concrete and brick infill structures built without legal permits in the desert or on former agrarian land. These informal housing projects are …

Public Domesticities, Taylor Hagan

Architecture Thesis Prep

In a lecture entitled ‘The Room, The Street, and the Human Agreement,’ Louis Kahn argued that the room is the beginning of architecture. Looking to engage in a similar conversation, this thesis recognizes the significance of the ecologywithin the domestic realm. Domesticities are constructed between walls, windows and doors, but are filled with furniture, materials and stuff that connect to personal preference, evoke a sense of intimacy and set the stage for a flux of activity. While explicit architectural form of a house or dwelling may express certain programmatic designation and usage, the user is ultimately king. Through personal selection …

The Crisis In Housing Has Deep Roots And Supply Alone Will Not Resolve It., Tom Dunne

Conference papers

Ireland is suffering a housing crisis which will not be easily solved. This is not the first generation to struggle with housing problems. A review of history shows that property markets have pronounced cycles and a continual struggle to provide affordable housing with much direct state provision and extensive subsidises for home ownership. Part of the current crisis results from the abandonment of direct provision of housing by the state but the gradual withdrawal subsidies for owner occupation, has also made a contribution to making home ownership less affordable for many.

A crucial part of dealing with the crisis is …

New Beijing | A Renewed Vernacular, Bowen Victor Zhang

Architecture Senior Theses

What does the term "vernacular" means? In an increasingly flay world, this thesis seeks to define the essential elements of the vernacular architecture of Beijing in order to propose a contemporary residential archetype.

In the past century, China has experienced unprecedented economic growth and development. Along with the many influences introduced by cross-cultural interactions, the phenomenon of architectural and social gentrification has begun to affect many of the populations living in urban centers. The same gentrifying forces that have drastically changed Greenwich Village and other New York City neighborhoods has rapidly moved to China and has replaced centruries-old vernacular communities …

It's Not Easy Being Whole | Reevaluating The Relationship Of Part Whole In Pursuit Of A New High-Rise Vernacular, Josh Bransky

Architecture Senior Theses

Architecture has the power to structure societal relationships. Specifically, architecture's form can bring the balanced relationship between community and individual identity, as exhibited in vernacular single-family homes, to the housing tower. This thesis plans to achieve such a social orchestration through a nuanced understanding of formal part-to-whole relationships, or "differentiated" parts within the whole, exhibited in a 300' housing tower in Seattle, WA.

By carefully balancing the relation, material, scale, and form of each part, this project will achieve this difficult whole (of differentiated parts). Mining this middle ground will produce a housing tower in Seattle, which actively balances the …