The traditional rowhouse form was a result of economical use of available space and materials that provided its occupants a home that fulfilled functional and societal needs. The result was a series of rooms along a travel corridor with a distinct underlining organization. The typology was established by certain characteristics of spatial configuration, constructional methods and ordering systems that kept the building economical. Popular attempts to accommodate modern needs into these buildings have lead to implementing the "open-plan" concept and creating a series of floors verses a series of rooms. This thesis explores the rowhouse within the modern context of Washington D.C. and attempts to redefined the typology for new construction. The desire is to resort back to the historical relevance of the individual room and create a typology appropriate for modern single-family needs. Four empty sites, each with their own context and conditions within the cityscape, are used to create four individual rowhouses that exemplify this new typology. The proposed row houses exhibit architectural structuralism and phenomenology, resulting in four rowhouses that complete the context they are set in, yet emerge with their own identity. / Master of Architecture / The exploration of typology in architecture is a historical and contemporary phenomena that classifies physical characteristics of the built environment into distinct types. An architectural typology instills historical continuity and spatial hierarchy, which guides and develops each design. This thesis explores the historical characteristics that make the typology of a rowhouse distinctive and re-examines it to accommodate the modern needs of a newly built rowhouse. The narrow space enclosed by two parallel walls creates a unique list of challenges for the typology. The need for light and air, the economic use of space, and personal desire drive architectural design decisions and a hierarchical order must be established to achieve this. This exploration ends with four different proposed rowhouse designs located in Washington D.C.

This thesis began as an exploration of the idea of home, a study that revealed the importance of place. Seeking to understand what makes a successful place, I studied neighborhoods with which I was familiar, identifying characteristics of both the vital and the lifeless. As a foundation for architectural exploration, this study helped me to recognize the dynamic qualities of denser, more urban neighborhoods, and to establish rowhousing as the vehicle through which to undertake my exploration of urban living. While providing the genesis for the project and further defining certain elements as worthy of further study, this initial exploration was nonetheless lacking. I had to do more than just speak of the conditions I hoped to achieve and of the characteristics of the elements with which to make the conditions manifest. I had to make the conditions, make the elements. It was essential for me to establish a clear order, so that these conditions could be brought together to form a cohesive whole. I was able to arrive at a fully conceived expression of the project by structuring the conditions that I identified through the application of three dimensional grids. The interrelationships among the grids helped structure the relationships among various conditions, ensuring that they enhanced one another, and were, in fact, stronger together than separately. Working with the grids taught me that in order for them to be effective regulators the grids had to be intelligible while still being flexible; that they should help define but never dictate. It exposed the tension between the regulating devices we, as architects, utilize as tools for design and the three-dimensional material with which the designs are constructed, as well as the obligation of reconciling the two. Not only must the device accommodate the material and the material reveal the device, but indeed all facets of the design must be considered in relation to one another and to the whole. When philosopy, device, and material work in service of one another the possibility for architectural expression rather than simple building is created. One does not revere great architects solely for their philosophies of design, the functionality of the spaces they create, the materials with which they construct them, or the regulating devices they employ, but rather for the complexity with which these elements are brought together to form a whole so well designed that it seems that it could have been done no other way. / Master of Architecture

Can the single family suburb survive into a post fossil future? This project explores the financial and ecological conditions of suburbia and how this will shape its future. The conclusion is that in its current form there is little chance for it to survive, in fact it is already being deconstructed.With the aim to reduce sprawl and protect the commons, while trying to maintain some of the calmer and softer properties that makes the suburbs so attractive for many people.The proposal is therefore to place rowhouses as infill between the current housing stock, creating a more dense city which has a higher capability to sustain itself. This is to be supplemented by an urban strategy that provides community centres and retail spaces where needed (along with public transport and paths for walking/biking).The hope here is to create neighbourhoods that can sustain under the 15-minute city model, while also giving people the possibility to live way more ecologically than previously possible, without having to bulldoze or drastically reshape it.But most of all its meant to spark a discussion about how suburban neighbourhoods can transition into a fossil free future, can we get them there by their own volition and on its own terms or are the suburban life doomed to be left behind?