Within the context of the contribution that urban infill development makes to urban wholeness, this thesis examines three specific sites in the city of Charlotte, North Carolina. The thesis tests the impact upon these sites of certain environmental design theories and principles developed primarily during the twentieth century. Subsequently, it examines what effect the infilling of these sites has upon the urban wholeness of the surrounding city. / Master of Science

This is a project about an old city block. It once housed confectioners, jewelers, restaurateurs, pharmacists, and retailers in street-level parcels with residents in the apartments above. Now, it is home to a barber, a few restaurateurs, and street vendors. Over 200 years of building and development have shaped what is now the north 100 block of E Broad Street and although most of it still stands, it shows the effects of renovations, time, and neglect. This is also a project about paths. As sidewalks move pedestrians along streets they provide paths to retailers, employers, homes, and places to gather and be. Instead of traveling alongside the city block, this project proposes a pedestrian path through it. By stitching together a series of fractured building parcels, the path begins and ends three hundred feet apart at the sidewalks of Broad and Marshall streets. Lastly, this is a project about movement. This bridge between Broad and Marshall Streets serves as a bridge between two different types of places. The collection of parcels that are united in purpose for the sake of this work touch with walls, floors, and ceilings and where they do, create opportunity for passage. Horizontal movement through the city block happens through large volumes defined by planes and program. Vertical movement occurs through perforated shafts and open layers that allow for users to comprehend distance and direction traveled.

Housing in prosperous American cities is becoming increasingly expensive, forcing many municipal governments to re-evaluate how they will continue to serve lower-income residents and ensure equitable access to housing and resources. In the City of Alexandria, the Alexandria Re-Development and Housing Authority (ARHA) has worked in recent years to partner with private developers to convert its existing stock of low-density, designated-affordable housing into more dense, mixed-income communities. This is possible because many of its existing communities sit on land in now-prime locations where the City currently allows the most density, as well as bonus density through a variety of mechanisms. While these projects have succeeded to some extent, the City is unfortunately still seeing a rapid rise in rents accompanied by a rapid decrease in available affordable housing of all types, in both privately-developed and publicly-subsidized communities. Increasing income disparity is also simultaneously driving lower-income to middle-class residents to suburban and exurban sites where limited access to municipal resources and public transportation can be highly detrimental to quality of life. While additional density is the knee-jerk response to many of affordability's challenges, often the resulting built solutions seem incomplete – achieving the basic goal of housing more residents, but failing to build thriving and diverse communities that connect people the way previous communities may have. After all, the pragmatics of building generally point towards maximizing square footage, monetary return, and speed of delivery by using conventional and commonly-accepted solutions, with less energy given to resident outcomes, and how people might be affected by the change to their living environments and communities. As Jan Gehl and Jane Jacobs examined in Cities for People and The Death and Life of Great American Cities respectively, simple pragmatics do not make for livable environments. A truly humanist approach to design for living in cities requires not only good policy, practice, and engagement, but also architectural strategies that respond to how humans relate to each other and their surroundings. Convergence explores how designers can contribute to making urban housing better for everyone by addressing housing affordability, person-to-person interaction, and community engagement in increasingly-dense environments. Its primary objectives are: • Encouraging neighborliness by increasing chance encounters as well as reducing the sharp threshold between private and public space often found in apartment-style buildings. • Increasing the visibility of human activity to the street in a multi-floor, multi-family project. • Using new mass timber methods and modularity to improve initial building construction and cost while also incorporating sustainable practices to reduce resource use and operating cost. • Anticipating that modification and reconfiguration will be required in the future, and offering defined parameters to simplify that process. • Creating a variety of unit sizes while also offering future flexibility to respond to changing community needs. • Combining the familiar with the novel to connect the new community to its surroundings, bridge experiences, and manage change. / Master of Architecture / In the City of Alexandria, the Alexandria Re-Development and Housing Authority (ARHA) owns several affordable housing sites in desirable locations that it has been working to convert into more dense, mixed-income housing in partnership with private developers. While these projects have succeeded to some extent, housing in the City continues to become increasingly expensive, and wages for low-income and lower-middle class residents are not keeping pace with the increase in cost of living. This phenomenon is pushing many long-time and/or lower-wage residents to the suburbs and exurbs, limiting access to municipal resources and public transportation, and reducing quality of life. As a result, communities and families with long histories in the City are breaking apart and dispersing. Many advocates, policymakers, designers, and developers have turned to additional density as the most immediate response to these concerns. However, additional density isn’t enough; new buildings may house more people, but fail to address the other aspects of building thriving and diverse communities that connect people the way previous communities may have. Good housing and good communities need more than square footage, so it is time to look beyond conventional solutions. New approaches are needed to respond to how people are affected by changes to their living environments and communities, and create the kinds of positive outcomes that should be part of any new housing project. Therefore, if we want to design for living in cities, we have to have good policies, practices, and engagement, but we also need architectural strategies that respond to how humans relate to each other and their surroundings. Convergence explores how designers can contribute to making urban housing better for everyone by addressing housing affordability, person-to-person interaction, and community engagement in increasingly-dense environments. Its primary objectives are: • Encouraging neighborliness by increasing chance encounters as well as reducing the sharp threshold between private and public space often found in apartment-style buildings. • Increasing the visibility of human activity to the street in a multi-floor, multi-family project. • Using new mass timber methods and modularity to improve initial building construction and cost while also incorporating sustainable practices to reduce resource use and operating cost. • Anticipating that modification and reconfiguration will be required in the future, and offering defined parameters to simplify that process. • Creating a variety of unit sizes while also offering future flexibility to respond to changing community needs. • Combining the familiar with the novel to connect the new community to its surroundings, bridge experiences, and manage change.

This study evaluates the current environment for mixed-income transit oriented development along DART rail within the city limits of Dallas. A close look at income and racial disparity is used as the foundation for advocating for a more proactive and aggressive approach to the development of affordable units proximate to affordable transportation choices. Assembling financing for mixed-income TOD projects is especially challenging, and multiple layers of federal, state, and city funding mechanisms are required for achieving the capital requirements of the development. Both typical affordable housing funding methods and new and nontraditional funding methods for multifamily housing were researched and evaluated with the intention to propose possibilities for catalyzing development in DART station areas within the City of Dallas that have, to this point, experienced underdevelopment. / text