In my next essay, draft due Tuesday, I need to “get real” with my thesis project. As in, propose an actual site, and a building program. Luckily this is the 1st of many drafts; it’s not finalized for another year.
My reading and writing thus far has focused on Utopianism and housing. (see Six Sentences exercise) In talks with Prof H, we’ve established that “housing” isn’t the right word (nobody wants to live in “housing,” they want to live in homes/communities/neighborhoods) but generally speaking, focused on where people live/dwell.
An aspect I want to include is a non-traditional site. At the moment, I’m looking at Post-Flood cities. I wanted to do something with Chicago, but alas it won’t flood via Global Warming. I might have to settle for NYC.
Regarding a building program, I was thinking perhaps something to do with Millennials, some sort of bohemian ghetto of kids who graduated from college to find a world without job opportunities, but I fear that might be too now/kitschy/news-article-generalization-without-basis-in-fact. And, maybe I should be addressing something more critical than unemployed middle-class white 20-somethings.
I’ve had this vague idea floating around, since reading Planet of Slums, of an adaptable infrastructure system to be dropped into megaslums. Something that is a road, a water pipeline, an electricity generator, and a framework for living modules, in units that can be snapped together. Maybe I can do something with this, in a developing nation with coastal slums.
I don’t know what I’m doing!
