Welcome to Shape Your Shelter!
Homelessness is an issue across this country. Walk through the downtown core of Spokane, Washington and you will find people struggling to survive, simply needing a roof over their heads for the night. There are approximately 1,185 homeless people living in Spokane and about 170 homeless families, most of them suffering from the extreme consequence of poverty.
Architecture has always been evolving to serve the needs of cities and their citizens. Solving the homeless crisis in Spokane is not going to happen overnight but giving them affordable housing today can solve their worries tonight.
This studio aims at designing affordable, portable, flexible, self-stand, discreet, compact and efficient shelter for homeless, using computational design and emergent technologies. This studio objective is to promote the learning of new methods of design grounded in computational design to enhance students’ perception of algorithms, design computation, mechanism, spatial quality, behavior, and human factor. It will create a platform to explore the potentials in emergent technologies and material behavior that can serve our design and society better. This studio aims to bring the homeless people back their dignity.
The intention is to design a shelter that not only provides the safe place for homeless and accommodates their basic needs, but it can also make an environment to play, and most importantly it can function as a business incubator or pop-up shop. Giving a homeless person the ability to become financially independent can lead to their recovery.
Students will submit their projects to the 2017 AIA Spokane Homeless Shelter Design Competition. One selected project will be build in 1:1 scale and will be showcased at the 3rd Annual AIA Spokane Awards Show and the Spokane Downtown Mall for 2 weeks. Then, by coordinating with local organizations and finding homeless volunteers, the goal is to initiate the usage of the built prototype in the summer. The long term goal would be working with the city of Spokane for continuing this idea for more years through a Pilot Program.
Architecture has always been evolving to serve the needs of cities and their citizens. Solving the homeless crisis in Spokane is not going to happen overnight but giving them affordable housing today can solve their worries tonight.
This studio aims at designing affordable, portable, flexible, self-stand, discreet, compact and efficient shelter for homeless, using computational design and emergent technologies. This studio objective is to promote the learning of new methods of design grounded in computational design to enhance students’ perception of algorithms, design computation, mechanism, spatial quality, behavior, and human factor. It will create a platform to explore the potentials in emergent technologies and material behavior that can serve our design and society better. This studio aims to bring the homeless people back their dignity.
The intention is to design a shelter that not only provides the safe place for homeless and accommodates their basic needs, but it can also make an environment to play, and most importantly it can function as a business incubator or pop-up shop. Giving a homeless person the ability to become financially independent can lead to their recovery.
Students will submit their projects to the 2017 AIA Spokane Homeless Shelter Design Competition. One selected project will be build in 1:1 scale and will be showcased at the 3rd Annual AIA Spokane Awards Show and the Spokane Downtown Mall for 2 weeks. Then, by coordinating with local organizations and finding homeless volunteers, the goal is to initiate the usage of the built prototype in the summer. The long term goal would be working with the city of Spokane for continuing this idea for more years through a Pilot Program.