Building and Site Programming

The design of the housing units is based on a system of building that is expressive of the thesis in how the organization adresses the larger picture. The Individual spaces are enclosed to the outside for privacy reasons, however, instead of being mysteriously organized inside a larger volume they are expressed on the outside form of the building. The individual needs to see and feel that their space is not irrelevant and it becomes a contributing factor to the overall design and organization on the site. The layering of the building on the southern facades are responsive to the solar arrangement with the intervention of the haptic walls. Instead of a flat northern facade, again the facade is layered and pulled back to expose outdoor spaces that relate to the ground level. 

The community spaces are larger program areas on the ground floor that are open to the community as shared space. The areas above these spaces are for the sharing amongst the families within the building to share and are more centered around the families within the house. In both cases, the shared spaces are represented on the outside of the building as more open to the outside. They are to show and express the connectedness with the large picture of sharing and participation. 

The site is composed as to provoke a small sense of on-site community but open up to the larger neighborhood. The buildings are arranged in a way that expresses a design response to a co-housing development. However, the organization of program on the site promotes a stronger sense of participation as all of the co-housing functions become evenly distributed amongst the buildings. This thesis adresses how the individual's participation and involvement in a community is the most critical points in understanding sustainability. The organization and distribution of this program imposes this notion on the buildings participation as well. Where a typical co-housing unit has a "common house", this plan takes down those barriers of one building being the community space and opens up all of the other buildings to the community as to show the importance of each one of them as a whole. 

Amongst the site the pathways and visual connection are what finalize the sense of community on the site. There is an interrelationship that happens between the community program spaces within each building. The community program spaces are responsive to the location that they are situated on the site. The nursery for example is located on the street edge where it can utilize a drop off zone on the street, where than it also relates to the playground on the site. The library is set back into the corner where it may be slightly more quiet. The shop and shed space is on the access with both of the community gardens as well as providing a pathway between the existing triple deckers to Franklin Park. While all of the community spaces are different, the paths in which you access them will alway cross the path of some other function on site. There than becomes an awareness and sense of importance amongst the buildings and individuals that shape the community.