Date of Award
Spring 5-31-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master in Interior Architecture [Adaptive Reuse]
Department
Interior Architecture
First Advisor
Eduardo Benamor Duarte
Second Advisor
Can Altay
Third Advisor
Jeffrey Katz
Abstract
With the rapid growth of the human population, we are encroaching further into wildlife habitats, particularly those surrounding urban environments. This accelerating urbanization leads to biodiversity loss, the degradation of ecological services essential to human health and well-being, and a diminishing connection between city dwellers and the natural world.
Today, urban planners, architects, economists, and other advocates for the future of humanity and the health of the planet are actively questioning how we might build greener, more resilient cities. While much of the focus has been on large-scale interventions — such as the use of sustainable materials, the creation of public green spaces, and the increase of urban gardens — this thesis turns the question toward a smaller, more specific scale: the adaptive reuse of individual existing structures.
How can the integration of ecological principles into the readaptation of buildings promote healthier cohabitation between humans and wildlife? How might design not only accommodate nature, but also invite the active participation of human inhabitants in nurturing and sustaining ecological relationships? This thesis seeks to create environments that sustain both human and non-human life, while also fostering a deeper awareness of -- and engagement with -- the need for coexistence.
To explore these questions, Carpenter House — a 19th-century second-empire style dormitory at the Rhode Island School of Design — is reimagined. Through the redivision and regrouping of functions, the project interweaves human life with the lives of plants and animals, enabling them to live side by side and influence one another. Just as importantly, it encourages residents to participate in the stewardship of this shared environment, making their daily activities part of the larger ecological system. The goal is to create an ecosystem within and around the building that not only serves its inhabitants, but also extends to the broader RISD community, offering a gathering place for people who value nature, a refuge for wildlife, and an experimental space where the boundaries between human life and animal life begin to blur.
Recommended Citation
Yang, Zhixiao, "Cohabitation at Threshold: Carpenter House Reimagined for Multispecies Living" (2025). Masters Theses. 1387.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1387
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