Latest thesis abstract

Strengthening Weak Ties:
Social Networks and Student Housing

“What if we simply declare that there is no crisis – redefine our relationship
with the city not as its makers but as its mere subjects, as its supporters? “

-        Rem Koolhaas

In his essay, ‘Whatever Happened to Urbanism?’ Rem Koolhaas provides a bleak assessment of the current practices of architecture and urbanism. He offers criticism while offering no solution of his own, while he recognizes the scale and complexity of the problem(s) of urbanism and architecture’s role in it. Koolhaas suggests that architects can no longer simply imagine grand new utopian scenarios of urbanity and society; knocking architects/designers/planners off the throne as kings of urbanism, a throne long devoid of any power and respect. If we were to take on the suggestion of Koolhaas, that architects are mere subjects, supporters; our role becomes that of facilitator, an agent of change, not THE agent.

Then the role of the architects becomes one of not imagining the future, but supporting it by analyzing and catalyzing emergent trends in culture, society and its social behaviors. I believe that in capturing emergent trends, architecture plays a crucial role in maintaining the relevance of architecture as agents of urbanity and subsequently supporters of society and its behaviors. While people may argue that we are in danger of creating outdated buildings, it is still the role of an architect to meaningfully contribute to the built environment in a manner that is socially, culturally, and temporally  contextual.

In a time when the world and the United States is undergoing rapid urbanization, we cannot rely any longer on preceding models of urbanity, as these established urban contexts are undergoing radical change themselves, being both subtly and radically modified by new social behaviors.  Conventional models of urbanity and social interaction cannot be applied to developing areas such as American suburbia. These areas of low density unsustainable living face the same issue of their urban neighbors, as new social behaviors are no longer emerging from place based environments but are quickly emerging from the digital virtual world where social interactions take place and manifest themselves in the physical environment in unprecedented ways.

Architecture has largely regarded the subject of social housing as dead and done, incapable of producing anything innovative and fresh. However, the emergence of online social networking, its new methods of virtual interaction and their subsequent manifestations in the physical world provide architects with new problems and frameworks from which to extract new solutions and models. The biggest issue regarding the emergence and proliferation of social networks is the destabilization and disregard of conventional norms concerning privacy and its ready acceptance by the young. Nowhere is this more evident and dramatic than within the context of the college institution. College life, with the student housing environment in particular, has always been fertile grounds for social experiments, by both deliberate and accidental means. It is because of this environment and mindset that the digital and social evolutions of society have taken place in this context, the young college student is an avid acolyte for new and fresh emergent trends.

However, the university system can be regarded as a stagnant and outdated model of academic and social life. Most universities still run on a system that is centuries old, the isolated academic village set in a pastoral landscape. The methods in which these universities are run also further the fact that these institutions are fragmented and non-cohesive. Academic departments have increasingly become more specialized, leading not only to isolation from other departments but also within departments. The institution has become a loose assemblage of isolated silos. It is a stark contrast to the always progressive and dynamic nature of student life and culture, the time when a person is most open and receptive to new ideas of society, behavior, and culture takes place in a stagnant and outdated context.

It is in this context that this project seeks to challenge and speculate. Student housing pays homage to pastoral roots, out of fabricated nostalgia and lack of critical interest. Subsequent inquiries into student housing innovation can best be described as washed-down imitations of modernist models of social housing. The university is no longer a village. It is no longer in a pastoral landscape; it is in an urban city. It is no longer an isolated retreat but an incubator for novel and emergent trends. It is an index of the society of the immediate future.

“In many ways young people are an index of social norms, and their patterns constitute the playing out of such norms.”

-       Steven Miles, Resistance or Security? Young People and the Appropriation of Urban, Cultural, and Consumer Space

Mark Granovetter, a prominent sociologist, states the importance of the weak tie (a weak tie is described as a relationship between two individuals with passing interest and affiliation, an acquaintance) in transmitting novel information and that those weak ties “are seen as indispensable to individual’s opportunities and to their integration into communities.” While his theories describe relationships played out in the physical environment, online social networks have led to an explosion of weak tie connections. It is easy for young adults to connect and interact with people who have similar interests but are physically distant. While these relationships may begin as weak ties across a large socio-spatial network, increasingly these weak tie relationships can become strong ties.

Novel information is passed through weak ties, and universities have begun to recognize this, creating cross-disciplinary think-tanks to create innovative solutions to imminent problems.  

While the world gradually moves toward a knowledge-based economy and a society of mass consumption, young adults and students have already moved on from this trend and have become active producers. This active production of media and knowledge entails the individual’s willingness to exposure to his social networks, whether they are strong tie networks or weak tie networks in which the individual is loosely affiliated with others. This readiness to expose one’s self should not be categorized as a loss of privacy but an emerging trend of personal brand building. The proliferation of online social networking has enabled the individual to create far more personal connections than possible solely through a physical environment. Online social networks enable and support the strengthening of weak tie connections, or bridges, across vastly large socio-spatial scales. YouTube’s success is attributable to its ability to cultivate strong tie interests but also equally expose individuals to weak ties in just an effective manner; i.e. the viral video.

This thesis project seeks to realize a new model of urban mixed-used student housing, using the sociological theory of weak tie connections across online social networks as a conceptual framework to produce a model that seeks to maximize the exposure of individuals to weak tie connections as a catalyst for social, cultural and academic interaction.

“The architect who builds a house or designs a site plan, who decides where the roads will and will not go, and who decides which directions the houses will face and how close together they will be, also is, to a large extent, deciding the pattern of social life among the people who will live in these houses.”

-        Maurice Brody, People and Buildings: Social Theory in Architectural Design

Maurice Brody argues that architecture plays a critical role in the way people behave and interact. This thesis seeks to sustain this premise by providing a new model in which emergent behavioral trends are manifested in a physical, built environment. It seeks to address the role and effects of social networking as a means in which to break social norms of privacy, community and urbanity.

This new model could potentially serve as an archetypical model for other contexts and situations, whether in different academic locales or as a catalyst for urban change at a city-wide level; instigating new propositions for change at a civic scale outside academic boundaries and contexts by using student housing as an index and barometer of emergent social behaviors among young adults and the eventual dissemination of those behaviors into the general society and built environment.