What does it mean to dwell? PSU architecture students present their investigations into the relationship between architecture and culturally specific dwelling practices, their spatial manifestations, and diverse urban community building. Particular focus will be given to integrating hyper-local food circularity as an adjuvant element for equitable and ecological urban living development. In light of urban densification and our reality of blurred boundaries between living/working, students probed assumptions about spatial types and thresholds associated with urban living. We will present suggestive typologies that could assist in changing urban lifestyle practices that intertwine public spaces with close-to-home food production, fostering multigenerational, small-business-oriented, and environmental-regenerative housing developments.

Learning Objectives

Learning Objective 1:
Describe design conceptions of urban 'smallness' that are suggestive of interrelating living and working with public spaces to provide social and cultural integration, thus contributing to residents' well-being.

Learning Objective 2:
Explore the complex relationships between social, environmental, and economic patterns through which conditions for urban dwellings are understood, represented, and influenced.

Learning Objective 3:
Discuss the significance of emerging urban phenomena - from rainwater mediation to small-scale food processing, and how incorporating such phenomena into design strategies can help to establish environmentally sustainable and socially beneficial urban dwelling concepts.

Learning Objective 4:
Describe concepts of hyper-local food circularity as an adjuvant element for equitable and ecological urban development.

Speakers

Anna Weichsel
Assistant Professor of Practice, Portland State University, School of Architecture 2019-2024

Abi Swain
B.Arch, woodworker

Alondra Maldonado
M.Arch

RJ Batiste
M.Arch