Drifting to Collective: Combatting a Hidden Epidemic Through Urban Housing

Abstract

Historically, villages have consisted of people choosing to dwell together out of necessity for survival. This social interaction catalyzes what makes these villages successful, interdependent communities. The current models of urban housing are less treated as a social good, and result in collections of private spaces rather than space that fosters social interaction at the scale of the home, site, and city. Social interaction is a key part of what is missing from modern urban housing, perpetuating the silent crisis of loneliness. Using the concept of the village as a unit of people living in collaboration, this work synthesizes its basic principles through a layered deconstruction of its social and programmatic structures. This thesis then investigates how this set of principles can be translated into modern developments to propose a model of co-living rather than simply co-existing in urban Halifax.