The identity of the American household has faced increased threats as economic troubles force residents to choose from the often inhumane, expressionless and stigmatized low-cost housing options currently available. Architecture has forever been a means of expression and a defining symbol of its developers and often the surrounding local culture. In present day American culture, there exists an inordinate level of concern for developing individual identity, a reason for architects to rethink the importance of user participation in the formation of the built environment (Rapoport 14). This thesis looks to increase life satisfaction and self-esteem in lower-middle income home buyers by engaging users in the process of shaping their home into a symbol of individual identity, an opportunity typically within reach of a limited population of skilled craftspeople and wealthy custom home buyers. Smothering of this human desire has lead to limited self-guided personalization through non-fixed and semi- fixed architectural elements often restricted to the interior, limiting one’s ability to influence how they are perceived. The architectural community has responded with community-based design, involving inhabitants throughout pre-occupancy design to strengthen user attachment to the fixed elements of built form. However, writers Stewart Brand, Clare Cooper-Marcus, and Nicholas John Habraken, among others, have for decades noted the continual lack of post- occupancy freedom, calling for buildings that learn, that express the values of their inhabitants, and that involve inhabitants in their formation, developing a deep connection to the soul and their individual identity.
Experimenting with a small development of six detached homes, this thesis develops individual identity through homes designed to achieve occupant ownership, encourage individual control, and shape positive personal and communal perception. Providing an opportunity for new homeownership to renters and those in need of reasonably priced homes, the thesis studies the neighborhoods of Cincinnati, Ohio to target a local portion of this common American population. The inner-ring neighborhood of Northside, one of the most diverse and progressive neighborhoods in the city, provides an opportunity for low-cost development within close proximity of the intended audience and without preconceived negative connotations. The homes are designed to build upon the tradition of self-guided user personalization framed by architectural environmental cues, instilling inherent potential for user modification beyond the traditional organization of non-fixed and semi-fixed elements. The design embraces the inventiveness of the individual, encouraging post-occupancy inhabitant involvement in the shaping of their living environment through the definition of spaces and the manipulation of form, among more traditional means. The result is a collection of unpretending homes representative of the individual identities by which they were created.