Reclaiming Joy:
Adaptive Reuse for Memory, Safety, and Community in Disinvested Urban Corridors
"Restoring Joy Through Adaptive Reuse in Neglected Urban Spaces"
THESIS NARRATIVE
This thesis grows from memory. It's from the way community once felt whole, safe, and alive. There was a time when life unfolded in shared spaces. Porches were more than architectural features, they were stages for storytelling, music, laughter, and neighborly watchfulness. Parks and summer day camps overflowed with children, where generations mingled naturally, and the neighborhood itself felt like extended family. We cared for each other selflessly, showing up with food, a helping hand, or simply a listening ear. Safety wasn’t something we searched for, it was embedded in the rhythms of daily life, woven into a culture of mutual respect and collective joy.
Over time, that fabric has frayed. In countless neighborhoods across urban America, abandoned plazas and neglected buildings now stand where vibrancy once lived. These spaces, left behind by cycles of disinvestment, mirror the erosion of togetherness, leaving gaps not just in the urban fabric but in the social and emotional heart of communities.
This thesis is a response. It's an effort to reclaim that joy, love, and safety through adaptive reuse. It asks: What if these forgotten sites could become porches again? Not the wooden stoops of individual houses, but urban porches. Communal thresholds where life spills out, where memory anchors us, and where new forms of gathering can emerge.
The guiding concept, the "Porch Network", reimagines abandoned plazas as interconnected spaces of belonging. These interventions are modular, flexible, and replicable, designed for neighborhoods across the country facing similar neglect. Each site is layered with cultural memory, ecological resilience, and opportunities for intergenerational exchange, weaving together a patchwork of futures that feel as generous, safe, and alive as the past once did.
At its heart, this thesis is about more than buildings. It is about restoring the conditions for joy, cultivating spaces of trust and selflessness, and honoring the deep human need for community. Through design, we can return to one another, and in doing so, reclaim the wholeness that was always ours.
What is the Problem?
Abandoned plazas in marginalized neighborhoods erode safety, memory, and community life.
Across many small urban neighborhoods, including Quincy, Florida, abandoned commercial plazas have become symbols of neglect, disinvestment, and community fragmentation. These empty sites not only weaken the urban fabric but also erode cultural memory, diminish safety, and limit opportunities for gathering and growth.
What is the Goal?
To transform neglected sites into joyful, safe, and connected community spaces.
The goal of this thesis is to reclaim these forgotten spaces by transforming them into places of joy, safety, and community. Through adaptive reuse and modular design strategies, the project seeks to restore belonging and reimagine public life for neighborhoods that have been historically marginalized.
What is the Concept?
The Porch Network reimagines plazas as interconnected porches at an urban scale.
The Porch Network serves as the central design idea. Drawing from the cultural role of porches as sites of memory, gathering, and intergenerational connection, the thesis proposes an interconnected system of adaptive reuse interventions that function like porches at an urban scale.
What is the Approach?
Through community engagement, cultural expression, and systemic urban design, the thesis builds patchwork futures for neglected neighborhoods.
The project integrates:
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Community Engagement (storytelling, memory collection, participatory design)
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Cultural Expression (art, performance, landscape as living archive)
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Urban Systems Thinking (networks of plazas, walkability, safety, ecological infrastructure)
Together, these strategies create patchwork futures: a modular, replicable framework for revitalizing abandoned sites in marginalized neighborhoods.
What's Next?
The next phase of this thesis will move from concept to exploration. Building on the framework of the Porch Network, the investigation will test how modular, replicable interventions can be applied across multiple underutilized plazas. This stage includes developing small scale conceptual models, diagrams, and site strategies that translate memory and storytelling into spatial form.
Community engagement will remain central, specifically, gathering narratives, mapping past and present uses, and imagining futures alongside the people who might inhabit them. Design explorations will also begin to address ecological resilience, safety, and systems of interconnection, ensuring that each intervention contributes not only to its immediate site but to the neighborhood network as a whole.
Ultimately, the next steps will clarify how adaptive reuse can become a catalyst for systemic transformation: turning neglected sites into vibrant urban porches that restore joy, cultivate belonging, and demonstrate a replicable model for neighborhoods everywhere.
GUIDING VOICES
C.L. Bohannon, Walter Hood, and Jane Jacobs serve as conceptual pillars for this thesis. Bohannon grounds the process in equity and community engagement, Hood emphasizes cultural memory and identity in design, and Jacobs frames the systemic activation of public space. Together, they provide the guiding voices for building a replicable porch network that restores joy, safety, and vitality in marginalized neighborhoods.
Architect, Urban Designer, & Educator
C.L. BOHANNON
Champion of equity-driven, community-engaged design.
Landscape Architect & Artist
WALTER HOOD
Designer of cultural landscapes that honor memory and identity.
Architect, Urban Designer, & Planner
PETER CALTHORPE
Advocate for sustainable, transit-oriented, and climate-responsive cities.
Writer, Activist, & Urban Theorist
JANE JACOBS
Advocate for people-centered cities and vibrant street life.