DREAMS

Your success will not be determined by your gender or your ethnicity but only by the scope of your dreams.

– Zaha Hadid, Architect

Underserved Populations/Communities
Groups that have limited or no access to resources or that are otherwise disenfranchised. These groups may include people who are socioeconomically disadvantaged; people with limited English proficiency; geographically isolated or educationally disenfranchised people; people of color as well as those of ethnic and national origin minorities; women and children; individuals with disabilities and others with access and functional needs; and seniors.

​Glossary Section: NDRF - National Disaster Recovery Framework

Projects this semester will explore architecture in support of underserved communities.  Our goal is to design solutions that help populations commonly overlooked and without resources or opportunities for a better quality of life, yet having the same dreams and ambitions as others.  Projects will allow students to define and explore the semester theme, identifying the characteristics and needs of underserved communities and develop their own critical response to the issue.  The designs proposed are intended to allow clients to unlock opportunity and access to their individual or collective dreams.

Proposed Projects

Day Laborer Pavilion
Beginning with an investigation of the day labor workforce within the community, students will design a pavilion to support workers' efforts to find employment on a day-to-day basis.  With the goal of raising awareness and celebrating the efforts of day laborers, students will use the Fibonacci Sequence as a proportioning system to create usable form and space.  The final pavilion design will provide a dignified and safe place for day laborers and employers to gather and negotiate for work.

The Dream House
As an extension of the day labor pavilion project, students will design a family home to support a day laborer client in pursuit of their chosen profession.  Having purchased a residential lot in the local community with ambitions to start a professional career and small business, the work done by the day laborer has fueled their dreams and ambitions.  They desire a space in their new house to pursue this vision for the future.  Students will work to design a new and innovative home for the 21st century that acts as a reflection of and vehicle for their client's dreams.

The Dream Co-op
Each year in the United States, about 20,000 youth exit foster care and are left to care for themselves in a world that offers little understanding or support.  Young adults who age out of foster care face a variety of difficult life situations such as homelessness, employment difficulties, early parenthood, and substance abuse.  While private charitable organizations have stepped in to support this group of young adults in our society, the challenges to a viable life remain.

For this project, students will design a residential facility to house a group of individuals who are making the transition out of foster care and into adulthood by themselves.  The site selected for the project is a vacant parcel within a traditional Texas main street mixed-use district, providing residents with resources and opportunities for employment.  Applying a clear understanding of client, site, and social/cultural issues, the goal is to develop an architectural solution to assist these young adults learn and develop a positive, healthy lifestyle for adulthood.  

The Dream Machine
Cities are not perfect organisms, and neither are the people who create, manage, and occupy them.  While they remain symbols of American industry and ingenuity, many cities now reflect all that has gone wrong with urban planning and policy in the United States.  Enduring decades of crisis, from white flight in the 1960’s to tidal waves of economic downturn, some communities within cities have become abandoned, crumbling, and forgotten by those responsible for them.  Residents who remain must battle declining property values, lack of city services, and high crime rates in addition to a variety of unanticipated problems. 

First identifying the characteristics of underserved communities, students will select a neighborhood This project will be an investigation into architecture that works to support underserved communities, heal profound emotional and physical wounds, and bring hope to people who may have no choice but to remain.