My interest in the study and practice of architecture is as a creative tool or solution to many of the challenges in our daily lives and communities.To not just create beautiful space that brings joy to be and exist in, but also space that, through design, addresses problems and helps make life easier and more livable.
When exploring an idea for a thesis, I wanted to find design solutions for many of the problems associated with housing and the changing space needs or requirements throughout one's family life-cycle.
For over a century the single family home with the nuclear family has been the quintessential American cultural housing ideal. (Think of all the suburban developments and houses with perfectly manicured lawns and identical rows of winding streets stretching for miles and miles out into the countryside). However, in my opinion, this form of housing is quite wasteful in terms of space, material, family, and community resources. It segregates and separates us from our extended family reserves, costing us money, time and most importantly the daily support we might otherwise have from those closest to us: family.
I recognize that I am proposing rethinking longstanding cultural understandings about our most basic everyday functions: where and how we live. Part of my architectural exploration includes a question that I know I can never fully answer in these pages: can design lead culture? More specifically, can I or "we" as architects create a desire for something new in our culture through design? Not a new toy or gadget, but a new way of thinking about our future and how we want to live? / Master of Architecture / While studying for my degree and completing my thesis, my family life has undergone many changes (a baby boy...and another on the way), which has added innumerable complications and paradoxically joy to my studies, professional career, and everyday life. When looking around for whatever help I could find I felt hamstrung, limited, by my living situation and the cultural biases that created many of the structures that guide and shape our lives. When I looked around me, I saw others in similar situations: college graduates moving back home because they can’t find jobs that pay enough to support living on their own, families taking in elderly and sick members because they can’t afford or don’t wish to put them in facilities, young families moving in with grandparents to help cover childcare, and on and on and on.
People, everywhere trying to make do, survive, in challenging circumstances.
These challenges turned my attention to a search for design solutions. What could help make this process easier and more tenable? How can I marshal the resources I already have to fulfill my commitment to being an architect and a mother? And how can architecture and design help with these everyday challenges?
My desire was to design housing that will allow for the ebb and flow of family life, to create flexible living conditions that can grow and adapt to one’s changing circumstances, and enable varying living conditions (especially multigenerational families) without sacrificing the privacy and independence that we have grown to enjoy and expect.
As an additional challenge, I wanted to explore doing this in an urban situation, partially because I believe this problem is more easily resolved in a suburban or rural condition by building another separate unit or addition on the same lot or compound to accommodate these changes and partially because I believe urban living allows us easier access to resources/amenities (natural, community, and others), is less wasteful, and the current progression of our species.
The following pages are an imperfect and incomplete first step to answer to these questions and challenges, something I’m sure I will continue to explore throughout my career and life. I look forward to you joining me on this journey.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/79671 |
| Date | 16 October 2017 |
| Creators | Bruegger, Fletcher Cork |
| Contributors | Architecture, Piedmont-Palladino, Susan C., Lever, David G., Kelsch, Paul J. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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