MArch Thesis
Building in the Border Vacuum
Monofunctional zoning in the twentieth century separated land uses. The most significant of such separations was between industrial and single-family residential uses.
Jane Jacobs criticized monofunctional zoning in The Death and Life of Great American Cities as a divisive instrument, prone to forming a “border vacuum” of absent vitality adjacent to an isolated zone.
Rather than lament its presence, this thesis reframes the border vacuum as an opportunity to implement a process of deregulating zoning. Through this process, a speculative proposal makes space for both light manufacturing and dwelling, turning a border into a seam.