Single Non-family Home

Abstract

Travel is inherent to the development of our social instincts, used as a means to raise our sensitivities to unfamiliar contexts and peoples. The act of travel itself had architectural impositions during one’s journey. Shelter became the backbone to support long journeys, but was also tied to additional program that was relevant to its context - Roman bathhouses as rest-stops for traveling tradesmen to engage with local consumers, or monasteries offering beds for both nomads and laymen in the middle of a long journey. In these scenarios, the place of shelter was primarily an anchor for the local community, while the act of shelter was more of a secondary possibility to this other-programmed space. By tying home, as quality, to shelter, as program, a space is domesticated. When accommodating transient and temporary use, this provokes a parallel between the politics of domesticity - who and how we are at home - with the business of shelter - what do we need to get by and how can this be mutually beneficial. Sited in Amman, Jordan, given its developmental history tangled with surges of transience and unintentional stay, this thesis will study how architecture can engage with existing urban and sociocultural conditions to facilitate the relationship between the permanent and the transient user of a city. A housing project for the non-resident user, the architecture will explore program as a series of interpersonal, interspatial exchanges through the lens of domesticity.