AN ENDLESS AMERICAN ODYSSEY (SPRING EDITION) KELSEY DePOLO
UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE THESIS
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The United States’ labor market is shifting towards temporary gig work, advancing communications technologies are eliminating the need for people to meet in shared physical spaces, and global warming threatens the longevity and livability of cities and towns around the world. In the future, it will be increasingly unnecessary and even ill-advised for humans to attempt to settle permanently in one location, yet the transient populations that currently exist in America are already insufficiently supported by the infrastructural systems in place. This thesis project proposes a tandem system of mobile architectures and moveable plug-in infrastructure that is designed to provide support to a near-future society of an evergrowing number of these transient Americans. By following a caravan of travellers with differing needs and desires on a rather mundane cross-country journey in this hypothesized future, it is revealed that though many of those who will live a nomadic lifestyle are able to do so as a result of social and economic privilege, at least as many will do so out of necessity. For the migrant workers and climate refugees forced into this lifestyle, the proposed mobile architecture and infrastructure would provide a degree of physical and social comfort to its users, but it would likely be unable to provide true respite from the ever-increasing tenuousness of employment and stationary, property-based settlements.