Vassallo, JesusFinley, Dawn2021-12-012021-12-012021-052021-01-28May 2021Carr, Brendan. "Commoning on the Ring Road." (2021) Master’s Thesis, Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/111703">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/111703</a>.https://hdl.handle.net/1911/111703This thesis synthesizes two decaying typologies on the periphery of Houston, the office block and low-rise mass housing, with the ambition to distill different uses and scales of space into a multivalent collective form. The outer edges of Houston house an unexpected degree of density. Largely built during the first oil boom of the late 1960s and 70s, a patchwork of low-rise high-density developments are the naturally-occurring affordable housing stock of the city. However, these developments are reaching the end of their useful life at a time when the city faces a critical need for housing. Contemporaneous to these mid-century low-rise housing projects, the suburban office block faces a different kind of decay. Though physically durable, these sites face increasingly high vacancy rates, only exacerbated by the on-going pandemic. Rather than continue a model of development predicated on unlimited availability of land, these under-utilized sites can be given a new life through the expansion of their use and spatial composition. Operating on a scale somewhere between city and building, the mega-parcels that constitute the exurban environment offer a unique opportunity to reimagine the privatized landscape of the urban periphery.application/pdfengCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.low-risehigh-densitysuburbanhousingadaptive re-useThesis2021-12-01