USC Architecture XpoInstructor: Wes Jones
This project develops a modular housing system for people experiencing homelessness through four spatial principles of dignity: privacy, safety, belonging, and autonomy. Rather than treating these principles as abstract values, the proposal investigates how they can generate form, circulation, and relationships between adjacent units. Each shelter is designed not only as an individual space, but […]
Strictly speaking, homelessness is not an architectural problem, it is a social problem. And Architecture is not about solving problems, anyway. Architecture can and has been used for that purpose—its buildings and affects can provide shelter and comfort, for example, but what makes those buildings and effects architecture has nothing to do with problems and […]
This project investigates the systemic roots and spatial expressions of homelessness in the United States through a comparative analysis of the West and East Coasts. By investigating historical trends, policy frameworks, urban environments, and climate conditions, the research reveals how regional differences shape the distinct challenges faced by unhoused populations. In response, the study proposes […]
Student Name: Weican Xue Instructor: Wes Jones Current homeless aid systems are largely premised on relocation, requiring individuals to leave their existing territories and enter centralized shelters. Such systems creates exclusion in practice, discouraging participation—particularly for those with limited mobility or established survival routines tied to specific locations. Meanwhile, cities contain numerous underutilized residual spaces, […]
Embroidering the Edge is a housing method for the commercial edge — the shallow, under-occupied strip corridor found across American cities. It uses embroidery's operational logic, not its aesthetic, to densify without erasure. The condition is specific and repeatable: single-story retail on a narrow lot, a parking field behind it, a residential neighborhood beyond. The […]
This thesis argues that homelessness in Skid Row is fundamentally a condition of spatial compression rather than mere resource scarcity. It proposes a vertical thickening of the city by elevating unhoused life into a semi-autonomous layer above ground, thereby relieving congestion and reorganizing coexistence. Informed by behavioral observation, the project introduces calibrated spatial prescription to […]
Suburbs and the single-family house comprise the principal means through which both ideas of home and the good life have been conceived in the US. Together, they constitute the ideal against which homelessness is defined and understood. This thesis asks, then: what can suburbia teach us about homelessness? How does it operate, grow, and endure? […]
By Jainish Patel, Guided By Wesley Jones. Los Angeles County’s homelessness crisis is not merely a deficit of housing, but a failure of deployment, scalability and urban integration. This thesis proposes a system driven architectural framework that prioritizes modular logic over formal expression to deliver rapidly deployable, cost efficient, and socially integrative housing. Using a […]
Solutions to large scale problems, such as homelessness, are most often addressed by leveraging the power of large-scale modern tools. These tools include XXXL machines of automation, mass efficiency, and production, which work in concert to produce XL infrastructures of order (buildings) as solutions. They may address short term critical human need, but do not […]
In the absence of the support and self-esteem typically provided by a stable home environment, teens and young adults exiting the foster care system are vulnerable to cycles of homelessness and disconnection in adulthood. This thesis proposes a transitional housing system that exists in constant development, housing the lives, memories, and potential of youth facing […]