Complete Communities: Drosscapes As Fertilizer For Human-Habitat

Abstract

Aimed at redeveloping urban sprawls, this thesis tackles the housing crisis within the Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia.

The H.R.M. has identified a multitude of “future growth nodes,” to redevelop into “complete communities.”

This thesis analyses and addresses the design guidelines for “complete communities,” and forwards a design proposal to redevelop an existing urban region into a residential community. Alan Berger’s work on “Drosscapes” aid in identifying a site location. Carlos Marano’s work on “fifteen-minute cities” aids in designing for accessibility and the human-scale. Erich Fromm’s work on “Biophilic Design” aids in designing a healthy community. Herbert Giradet’s work on “Regenerative Cities” aids in creating a community which heals the ecosystem; and Alison Smithson's concept of the “Mat-Building” is implemented for physical deployment.

The resulting “complete community” sees the restructuring of underutilized and spatial inefficient, existing urban spaces, into efficiently organized, ecologically friendly, human-scale, accessible, healthy, “complete communities;” or Human-Habitats.