I/O HABITAT: Hacking the grid

In the wake of an unprecedented recession, how can architecture help stabilize and improve the fabric of communities impacted by the recent housing crisis? This project proposes rehabilitating both vacant housing and vacant infrastructure as a means to designing an alternative future development model.
This project -- a conceit, speculation, alternative future -- explores ways of breaking traditional suburban development by hacking "virus-infected" systems which promote degradation and community instability. Hacking allows a new stream of code to supplant and ward off the virus -- an architectural antidote which can provide a framework to build community.