Homes for Hope: Home & Shelter

Essential Questions 

1. What makes a shelter?

2. What makes a home?

3. How does a shelter become a home?

Unit 1: Imaging a Shelter

What does home mean to you? Students reflected in group discussion and individual writing on the themes of home and shelter. In small groups, students explored the construction of simple shelters through the creation of architectural models. The unit concluded with speculative designs of the full-scale, dome shelter.

Unit 2: Building the Shelter

Students organized into fabrication teams to execute the construction of a full-scale shelter. Students developed procedures to ensure accurate measurements and high levels of craftsmanship. Students completed the unit by successfully testing the assembly of their geodesic dome shelter.

Unit 3: Shelters and Homes

Returning to their work from unit 1, students imagined their dome shelter as a platform to communicate their insights about the issues of home and shelter in Los Angeles. Students visualized these views and concerns through painting and drawing on the faces of the dome. The course was concluded through the public display of the student-designed shelter in the plaza of the University of Southern California School of Architecture.

Outcomes