Moving out of the American industrial era, we are left with not only the Rust Belt but also, the Bay Area’s ship building hubs of Hunter’s Point, Richmond, and Mare Island. In these places, inhabitants have been left with deserted landscapes and a scarcity of community. Like a stroke victim learning to change lifestyle habits, Mare Island is coming to terms with how much the Navy shaped and deserted it. The last 20 years of ad hoc planning has resulted in a prefab-home sample, 1,500 tract homes, and various examples of arson; which is to say, a lack of social support.

 

This thesis is a call to reorient spatial values surrounding aging people and buildings for the rising population of individuals over 65. The jurisdictional proposal of overlooking purported “functionally obsolete” buildings is flipped, a WWII bunker is used as a case study in reuse, aging, and housing. Blurring social spaces, the pet mausoleum, laundry room, atrium, bed closet, and prefab units forgo privacy for intimacy and ask social networks to grow deeper. Against the backdrop of wood and concrete, aging, both lived and built, is seen as an ongoing process not simply an end.