Homes Over Hostility

Transforming defensive architecture into sustainable homes for the unhoused

For our this project during my second semester at SCAD, we were asked to redesign for a current product or problem in my Principles of Sustainable Materials class. I chose to focus on hostile architecture, which often effects people who use public spaces the most, such as the unhoused, disabled, working class, and young people. I wanted to create opportunities to involve the community to harness the power of public spaces rather than use them as spaces to control behavior.

Ultimately, my project culminated into a self-sustaining system which proposed utilizing and transforming spaces meant to ostracize the unhoused into sustainable, safe housing and supportive urban farming to create an ecosystem of support between the community, the unhoused, and public spaces.

This project was tackled by approaching it through the research skills that I developed while in undergrad as well as at SCAD. It began with deciding my topic and doing the underlying research into what the problem was, who I could best serve, and what existing innovations are trying to solve this issues. I then analyzed all my research to discover the opportunity areas for innovation.

My idea centered around how we might transform hostile architecture and the space it holds into spaces that actually provide and help the people it tries to obscure, the unhoused.

I also researched new and emerging sustainable materials, focusing not simply on carbon neutral but actually carbon negative materials which could be supplied by urban and local farming.

From there, the self-sustaining system of supportive urban farming for supportive community housing arose. I wanted to develop something that not only tried fixing parts of the issue, but truly got down to the root and approached it from all angles. I chose a control structure for which to improve the materials of and replaced it with my innovative researched materials. I broke down the complete supply chain for every material in order to determine how much more sustainable the new materials were, and how supportive urban farming could help not just to support to sustain. It also would allow integration of the unhoused back into their community and allow more resources to be provided, like jobs, alongside housing.

I've included both weaknesses and opportunities and while the class finished this past quarter, I hope to continue working and developing the idea.