Throughout our lifetime we encounter and participate in a variety of different communities. As children, we often formed our relationships through where we lived and went to school. Young adults, in their choices about college and early career, often for the first time are faced with questions about how to find meaningful communities. These choices are challenging, especially if they involve moving to a new city, working remotely, or otherwise stepping out of familiar situations. I am interested in bridging the connection to community between childhood and adulthood. Roger Hart said, “When children have the freedom in space and time to play with one another, they find ways to pass on their culture to peers through games, song, and dance, but also to transform it…Play with peers is extremely important to social, moral and emotional development. In free play, children learn to understand others and to develop skills of cooperation, sharing and caring.” This suggests that play is an important component in building community even as we grow older. My thesis aims to reimagine the meaning of play in a community that values hybrid work, through the exploration and implementation of third places inspired by the culture in Philadelphia, for Generation Z within a vertical community. The spaces strive to support the new and unique lifestyle while considering how it might be facilitated to aid young people in learning the interactions that shape community.

Working with a team of architecture, interiors, and real estate students, and collaborating with community stakeholders, this project focuses on expanding the capabilities of the mutual aid group, North Philly Peace Park. The site sits within a primarily Black and low income neighborhood and includes a community garden and rowhouse prototype for temporary housing. We wish to actualize the larger vision of Peace Park through architectural support in a way that meets physiological needs, invites commerce, allows knowledge exchange, and community healing so that residents can reclaim space, agency, and sense of place. The project would provide food, energy, shelter, Black self determination, and resilience that could hopefully be replicated throughout Philadelphia.

Housing has been transformed into an industry, rather than a right, which has made it increasingly difficult for marginalized communities to obtain and sustain viable housing. Housing insecurity is an ongoing crisis that intersects with the built environment by presenting a unique list of needs that interiors programming and design could better address through trauma-informed methods.