Neighborhood of Instances
San Francisco, CA | 2024
Kinship refers to the web of social relationships that shape our social and cognitive development- typically defined by domesticated biological relationships. Godship- strictly refers to biologically related bonds that are traced through culture, power and money, while Oddship refers to chosen bonds formed through instances. Instances are examples of particular situations that occur, without determinance. Godship, is a societal obligation that is read in the architectural typology of the nuclear family- the suburban home, whose design often presumes a heteronormative family structure.
Architectural typology both expresses the ways we live and confines it.
While Godship emphasizes barriers around the family, isolating them from their very neighbors, Oddship expands beyond obligation, creating a dense social web. These social webs become crucial as a means of kinship for those lacking consistent biological ties, for example, San Francisco’s Unhoused Youth. As reported by ASR, Applied Service Research, lack of emotional support, parental addiction, and financial instability are the leading causes of housing security among the youth making them vulnerable targets for prolonged homelessness. There are approximately 1,073 displaced youth in the city, with less than half stating that they have ties to familial support.
My thesis research argues that Oddship’s formative relationships are crucial because of their expansive nature that grows through each phase of one’s life, rather than being reliant on Godships’ blood ties - collecting childhood bes tfriends, first partners, university roommates, in-laws, caretakers and so on. Oddship relationships develop in every moment, and are dependent on instances of chance that create alternative means of family. The function of strategic games, in general, allows for the adoption of societal scenarios to be broken down and played through a generated system of possibilities. Principles of capitalism are demonstrated through the familiar lens of Monopoly, while colonization and conflict resolution are shown through games like Catan.
In my case, the game serves as a design tool. When brought into the realm of architecture, it insights into a generated neighborhood that proposes a new interpretation of family forming that does not rely on genealogy, called the Neighborhood of Instances.
By fostering San Francisco’s unhoused youth, the neighborhood aims to use adjacently placed clusters of singular polycule dorms to enhance instances for oddship among the displaced to occur.
The thesis proposes a new architecture of domesticity that expands our definitions of kinship, and by extension redefines relations of care that undergrid contemporary norms through the design of a polyhousing society that aims to foster and nurture discarded children.
Overtime, these relationships become interwoven as people are gathered, and oddships are formed. The suburban block is altered into bands of communal use programs and dorms that are used to instigate familial configurations The neighborhood typology is intended to emphasize family by redefining the forgotten.
