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Millennials and Home: Understanding the Needs of the Millennial Generation in Their Living Environment

The focal cohort in this study is the Millennial generation, the group of people born between the years of 1982 and 1999. Research shows that many Millennials are delaying marriage and having children, which significantly impacts how we will design spaces for this generation's needs based on their current point in life (Strauss & Howe, 1991). Their social factors influence their location, housing choices, and their personal meaning of home. It is important to look at the American life cycle as it has actually been lived by each generation. Because Millennials are more involved with keeping up with trends, and incorporating them into their lifestyle, design needs are much different than in the past. Millennials desire a sense of community and connection to their surroundings (PRC, 2010). This generation wants walkability, convenience, housing variety, and affordability within their housing environment, and a mixed-use development is an applicable solution that successfully accommodates these desires (RCLCO, 2013). Currently there is a lack of housing opportunity that will accommodate Millennials' needs at their current point in life (PRC 2010; Jones, 1995). This lack of available housing makes building an emotional connection to their homes and surrounding community extremely difficult for Millennials (Jones, 1995). In order to accommodate this desire for emotional connection to their surroundings, it is essential to understand the Millennials' needs in relation to their meaning of home. The Millennial generation as a whole, connect their personal and social identity to their physical surroundings, therefore, these young adults desire to establish a personal identity through "sense of place" in their home and a social identity through "sense of community" in their living environment (Jones, 1995). Determining what needs Millennials find important within their home environment allows for the opportunity to enhance their emotional connections with their surroundings. This study illustrates the findings from the research study, and provides a proposed design solution for a mixed-use housing environment for Millennials. A group of Millennials have been be surveyed to determine how they accommodate their needs, gaining further insight on how accommodating Millennial's needs enhances these desired meaningful connections. The resulting data lead to a greater understanding of the meaningful relationships that Millennial's desire to create within their surroundings, and how to better accommodate their needs through design. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Interior Design in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts. / Summer Semester 2015. / June 24, 2015. / Housing Environment, Meaning of Home, Millennials, Mixed Use, Sense of Community, Social Identity / Includes bibliographical references. / Steven B. Webber, Professor Directing Thesis; Jim Dawkins, Committee Member; Marlo Ransdell, Committee Member.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_253163
ContributorsTimmerman, Katherine (authoraut), Webber, Steven B. (professor directing thesis), Dawkins, James D. (committee member), Ransdell, Marlo E. (committee member), Florida State University (degree granting institution), College of Fine Arts (degree granting college), Department of Interior Design (degree granting department)
PublisherFlorida State University, Florida State University
Source SetsFlorida State University
LanguageEnglish, English
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeText, text
Format1 online resource (193 pages), computer, application/pdf
RightsThis Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them.

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