AN EXPLORATION OF ARCHITECTURAL SOLUTIONS TO THE MARGINALIZATION OF THE HOMELESS
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Date
2022
Authors
Wyatt, Hannah
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Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
It is estimated that at least two percent of the world's total population is homeless (Chamie, 2017) affecting up to 560,000 Americans on any given night in 2019 (HUD). Many of the strategies implemented by the United States, as well as globally fail to address the root of the problem. Many current solutions also fail to serve the unhoused in ways that are psychologically proven to improve one’s ability to find and keep housing (Pable, 2018). Instead of dealing with the societal impacts that lead to higher rates of homelessness such as access to education, poverty, and opportunity, many solutions for homelessness implement “hostile architecture” like uncomfortable benches or spikes placed in an effort to keep someone from sleeping or resting in one area, or other tactics that focus on pushing the homeless out of public spaces and thereby further marginalize them. Through this thesis I aim to demonstrate the shortcomings of anti-homeless architecture and compile an outline of architectural solutions that can include and integrate the homeless into public spaces and buildings, using existing research and case study buildings to form a list of my own design criteria.
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Keywords
Architecture, Homelessness, public space, design