Category: ARCH 502A: Public Engagement

There is no middle ground for working class Angelenos. As the city gentrifies and the cost of living increases, working families are affected hardest by the affordable housing crisis. At the same time that housing is becoming both more scarce and expensive, other buildings, including historical structures, are underused or vacant; many of these buildings have the potential to be repurposed or reused to make a positive impact on their existing contexts. The need for an increased density of housing within established neighborhoods presents an opportunity for a new approach to middle class housing, one that creates new urban public spaces to connect communities and preserves the history and culture of a place.

Korea’s Demilitarized Zone is a dichotomic political and ideological divide that marks the division and separation between two polar extremes. The paradox of the border condition is that through its temporal maturation, the line becomes blurred, ironically existing as softer and more nuanced forms of reading the physical environment. Re(De)-Visit destabilizes the hierarchical and dominant “hard readings” of the map by resurfacing dormant, soft readings of the land, allowing for a greater cultural, social, and spatial experience of the DMZ’s near future. The symbolism of the harsh split is addressed through revisiting intense historical events and experiential tropes of the divide, recreating and offering a new collective memory, one which is experienced through a bottom up, soft, blurred experience of the land, one step at a time.