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 * ‍ ****Welcome to Your ARCH523 personal Wiki notebook! **
 * The COURSE wiki, www.ARCH523.wikispaces.com is where you will find information to help you through the course, such as assignments, presentations, articles, schedules, etc. **
 * Your INDIVIDUAL wikipage is where you will post your assignments for this course and where you will receive feedback on your progress. Participation is monitored and counts toward your class participation requirement. **

THESIS IDEAS

1) Graffiti Art Museum, Shanghai, China. I recently returned from Shanghai where I noticed an odd love affair between Chinese society and graffiti art. Graffiti is actually not officially illegal there and I closely watched the story developing around the announced destruction of a graffiti area to make way for commercial development. There was such an outcry from not only the artistic community but also society at large who felt a vital aspect of the urban fabric was being lost. With this project I would reaffirm that connection while also providing the worlds first official museum dedicated to graffiti art, its means of production and history. A system of movable panels would allow the entire structure to eventually be clad entirely in graffiti and preserving work by elevating it beyond the reach of future participants.

2) Coliseum Community, South Side Chicago, USA. Having grown up in close proximity to the various public housing developments throughout the southside I have been developing a closed system community with its own internal motility structure and infrastructure. The idea at the center of this project is to enable a more stable framework for the neighborhood within, allowing for greater self awareness of the community at large and thus improved living conditions for those within it, while also serving as a model for those in the surrounding regions.


 * 3) Vertical Trailer park community, TBA**
 * Inspired by the parking structure created by Herzog De Mueron, this project seeks to update and improve the current trailer home community development by enabling it to exist in a more urban local through a vertical treatment. The poured concrete garage system would provide the necessary infrastructure, plumbing, electrical systems, etc, to be uitilized by individuals and families unable to afford "real" homes but who still wish to live in or near a city center. The building would also provide green spaces and other recreational avenues at various levels to foster a more healthy and active environment, and is so doing, curtail the numerous societal ills often found within traditional trailer communities.**

- WEEK 2 -

So, upon considering things more after having both your feedback and that of my colleagues I think the vertical trailer park concept is by far the most interesting with the broadest implications. Given the exponential increase of slums world wide, the best of which are characterized by trailer parks here in America, it is a social as well as architectural problem which should be addressed.

sters Project A simple identifier: (a few words) //“My project will be a modular based mixed income mid/high rise.”// A short description: Expanding on the notion of a parking garage, this model proposes to provide affordable housing in urban settings through the use of mobile/trailer homes. A side from numerous levels of bays in which individuals may park their home or homes the "Vertical Park" swill also have a vertical garden/farm system incorporated into the structure to offset the carbon footprint, provide recreational zones, and possible employment for residents.

//“My project will be about .”// Affordable housing is fast becoming a pressing issue in nearly every urban center and according to current speculations the prognosis for the industrial and economic health of the west is not good. As more people find themselves unable to own a home they are forced into the rental market and accept their relative lack of return for initial investment. By buying a modular pod system that is capable of being packed and shipped to other vertical parks around the state, nation, and even world, it enables a proverbial "turtle" housing type where in the individual essentially rents the camp ground on which they set their tent. This allows for individuals to follow the job market or just transition from place to place as time and circumstances dictate without fretting over the current housing prices.

A pointed case statement: (a paragraph or two) //“My project will be developed because __.”__// The challenge is larger then the building itself, its more about the challenge of altering an existing very blue choler archetype into something elegant, efficient and hip so that not only those lower on the economic ladder are interested but also students, and young professionals. The answer lies in both the execution of the overall system, and the design of the individual modules/vehicles themselves and how they connect to the larger building system.

__**GOALS your project will satisfy:**__ 1) affordable housing system 2) vertical farming/green spaces 3) improved building techniques through precast forms and modular systems


 * Guiding Principles**

Who What Why???

Mobility Enabling a more mobile lifestyle to accommodate the ever shifting needs of the working class allowing people to locate themselves close to job centers where they are most likely to earn a stabilizing income.

Affordability Due to a growing population of the world who are unable to afford the "American Dream" of home ownership, this is an alternative that still enables a healthy urban existence.

Accesibility When people live far out in middle of nowhere they are also far from quality services and educational opportunities. By providing these individuals access to an urban setting they are immediately closer to improved and more updated services.

RELEVENT STAKEHOLDERS:

I never liked George W. Bush much, but I remember when he gave a state of the union address and boasted how more Americans owned homes under his presidency then any other in history I had to admit that it seemed pretty cool at the time. Today the landscape of homeownership has shifted drastically and more people are being forced into foreclosure and doomed to renting for the foreseeable future. This project proposes to institute a new level of modular homes using the current trailer home as its base point to provide a more moderately priced home solution.
 * Individuals and families** incapable of owning a standard permanent home.


 * The businesses market**, having an excess of shipping containers, this project proposes utilizing an estimated billions of dollars in raw material otherwise laying fallow.

4a) Initial research and bibliography development:
 * Document at least 5 initial information sources in MLA bibliography format.
 * Include short annotations for EACH of your sources - The purpose of the annotation is to inform the reader of the relevance and quality of the sources cited.
 * Refine your case statement using real data from your research.

4b) Begin the precedents portion of your bibliography by identifying at least FIVE precedents you could use as case-studies for your masters project. For each precedent, include the following (//similar format to your own masters project definition structure//):
 * Project Title
 * Short Description (elevator statement)
 * Case Statement (identify the situation or condition that is solved by the project)
 * Project Data (Architect, location, other relevant details)
 * Sources of Information (Bibliography: publications, websites, etc.

Favela – Bairro Projects Jorge Mario Jauregui Architect Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

This environmental case study examines a squatter community near Rio in Brazil, a growing slum in an emergent nation. This “favela” is what I see when I look at Ingel’s Mountain Apt block. The comparison presents an interesting juxtapoisition in how the model exists in two seemingly disparate economic and regional conditions. The Mountaind Dwellings addresses the issue of parking in an interesting manner, dramatizing it in a sense, causing the space to transcend that of a parking structure.

“Favela-Bairro Project, Brazil,” [], World Bank, Sept 17, 2011, []

“Some Rio Favelas Reclassified,” By Helen Trouten Torres, [], June 21 2011, __[|http://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/rio-politics/some-rio-favelas-reclassified/#]__

Sinclair, Cameron, and Architecture for Humanity, __Design Like You Give a Damn__. 2006.

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Mountain Dwellings Copenhagen, Denmark. Bjark Ingels Group

Archdaily.com, Archdaily Database, Ltd. 2009. 11 March 2009. 

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LOT-EK Mobile Dwelling Unit NA Office of Mobile Design

Kronenburg, Robert. “LOT-EK Mobile Dwelling Unit” __PORTABLE ARCHITECTURE__, Venice: 2008. []

This highy innovatice adaptive reuse project employs an existing shipping container loading system to engineer a highly dynamic apartment complex. The containers themselves are among the best I have seen in their ability to slide in section, delineating rooms and allowing for additional storage or operative function to the side with the center clear. It’s a great example of elegant compartmentalization and efficiency with seemingly little space wasted when closed and no loss for space when open.

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1111 Lincoln Road Miami FL Herzog and De Meuron

Rather than being just a transport facility, it is, according to its developer Robert Wennett, "an urbanistic, friendly, connected building … a public place for anyone who wants to enjoy the city". It includes "a cultural plane where people can produce culture" and it "mixes programme in unique ways that people have not seen before". The 2-way system of poured in place slabs stand over a set of irregular columns, giving a sense of a precarious equilibrium and casting intersecting shadows in the Miami sun and lending more character to the facade.

Archdaily.com, Archdaily Database, Ltd. 2010. 07 May 2010. 

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Supershed and Pods University of Alabama 1997-2001 Students

The supershed and pod project was a student residency project in which the so-called supershed served as a connecting superstructure for the individual pods. Each set of students engineered their own pod structure to house their desks and beds using various innovative adaptive reuse techniques.

Dean, Andrea Oppenheimer, and Timothy Hursley. “Supershed And Pods, 1997-2001.” __Rural Studio, Samual Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency__. New York, 2002.

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SITE ANALYSIS


 * Establish key criteria for how you will select a site for your project **

The site should be in an area where land is cheep and there is a need for urban infill. The site should be near major modal systems such as train stations, highways, bus routes, etc. The site should be in emergent lower class neighborhoods lacking in good affordable housing and in need of a face-lift.

I was born in one of those red brick townhouses that line 55th in Hyde Park and so have spent a lot of time in this area. I grew up biking around and playing baseball in Washington Park as a kid and always marveled at the expanses I later learned were crafted by Olmstead himself. Approaching the site is an experience of emergence, where nature becomes urban. When the two corners are considered together mark a gateway connecting the neighborhood to Washington Park command a strong view of the park itself while still located on a busy and bustling boulevard. Its proximity to trains, highways, schools, supermarkets, libraries, and other amenities makes it a prime area for redevelopment.
 * 339 E Garfield blvd, Chicago, Il. 606037. **

There’s a stretch of empty lots running between Ingleside and Woodlawn, immediately adjacent to the Cottage Grove Green Line stop, they are well connected and well situated on the Chicago south side close to the lake where breezes are common even in the summer. The University of Chicago has a presence nearby at the Woodlawn Charter School and the local office for the Board of Education gives the sites a sense of promise and possibilities. Across the street is the local Department of Human Services and further down you find the Bessie Coleman Public Library. In terms of a more lateral or hoizontal approach to the Urban Trailer park idea the site has great promise.
 * 900 E. 63rd Street, Chicago, Il. 606037. **