PUBLIC DOMESTICITY AND THE PRIVATE CITY

Spring 2023 | UVA School of Architecture
Ultimately Urban - Urban Design Undergraduate Thesis

Chinatown, San Francisco is one of the greatest, densest hubs of Chinese history and Asian immigration in the United States, but this ethnic enclave has suffered massive downfalls due to racialized COVID-19 agendas.

Even without COVID, Chinatown residents suffer some of the highest rates of diabetes and physical inactivity in San Francisco, particularly those who live in Single Room Occupancy units. Cramped into less than 100 sq. ft., low-income families of 2-6 individuals of all ages struggle to live fully in the mentally, physically, and socially suffocating space of an SRO. Residents rely heavily on shared spaces of the public and lack the private and third spaces needed for individual, healthy physical and cognitive growth let alone economic growth and mobility out of an SRO. This project thus builds off the programmatic analysis of domesticity and tourism against the Restorative City Framework, proposing a one-minute, one-block city of small private spaces, medium semi-public 3rd spaces, and large public spaces for SRO residents and the larger Asian American community.

Supported by a parasitical network of scaffolding atop existing SRO complexes and within void space, the project directly responds to spatial needs of SRO residents and bridges them with public social resources provided by existing stakeholders leveraging tourist-centered development towards community investment and growth. The one-minute one-block city on the given site serves as a template for other engagements of void space throughout Chinatown’s SRO hubs.

The proposal is ultimately a call for the reconsideration of void space as opportunities for interstitial programs of domesticity and tourism to provide resources and spaces that support the mental and physical health of Chinatown’s SRO residents and families.