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Solutions to the Problem of Homelessness

Instructor: Wes Jones

Yibo Peng

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 also as part of a larger collective system where spatial conflict, negotiation, and connection take place. The project focuses on the threshold between personal territory and shared circulation, proposing a thickened filter zone that mediates entry, interaction, and separation. Through combinations of units, openings, and layered movement, the design studies how dignity can be translated into a clear spatial logic. The aim is to create an emergency housing prototype that is compact, adaptable, and socially legible, while demonstrating how individual shelter and collective life can be organized through a coherent architectural system.

Yibo Peng