The Welcome Home

Thesis Research Fellowship

University of Virginia, 2017

Advisors: Shiqiao Li, Luis Pancorbo, Alex Wall

Charlotte, North Carolina faced rapid population growth in the 2010s, topping the previous three decades of banner growth that had transformed the southern city into one of the largest metro areas in the U.S. Where sprawl had been the normal mode of building in these previous decades, by 2017, this had reached a natural limit. Home prices in Charlotte, still far under the national average, were beginning to steadily begin to tick upward. Could Charlotte head off a housing affordability crisis through the gradual, then rapid deployment of digitally fabricated, self-built homes?

Using the fabrication methods pioneered by 00 Architects and the wikihouse, this thesis sought to prototype several variations of affordable homes that could gradually be added to over time by their users. Sited in the partitioned yards of existing suburban lots as Accessory Dwelling Units , the Welcome Home would provide the base for a secondary layer of development,