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Thesis - Week 1. From nowhere to Vail

August 30, 2009
by Jason Cross

Well it is official, thesis has begun. Eva Franch, our Thesis adviser, has done a great job of setting specific goals, targets to help us to develop and frame a more specific understanding of ones own thesis. This has been extremely helpful for me in regards to forcing a conscientious editing of all research up until this point. The straying thoughts and ponderances that have continued to flounder in and out of clarity are forced, either to the shelf or the forefront, into a more coherent discussion which hopefully matures into an actual thesis.

This has led me to look at Vail, Colorado. Looking at it as a specific instance where geography, program, social issues, growth, and more have created a tenuous situation. As second homes for the wealthy grow by the day public housing is left largely unsolved. This is critical for the Vail area as many employees that work in the area can not afford to live there. Instead being forced to live in excess of 50 miles away. Affordable accommodation and housing has largely been frowned upon as aesthetic eyesores that create unwanted ownership of adjacent lands. Further exacerbating the tension between the need to maintain a specific quality of life while also providing affordable seasonal and permanent housing.

Over the years worker housing has been eroded and turned into multifamily rental property. At any one time as much as half the beds in Vail may be empty, while worker housing and affordable housing options are filled to excess capacity. Current solutions have called for new high occupancy apartments to be built on the north side of the highway. Although many locals believe in due time that this housing too will eventually be converted into for sale real estate – further eroding any consistent employee housing.

My proposal is to utilize novel means to develop a public / private collaboration where architecture can serve to mediate between the needs of the city, employees, commercial interests, and future needs. Utilizing adaptive material, form, and structure I hope to provide a solution that can aesthetic and formally add value to the Vail experience to all contingencies.