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ORCID

https://orcid.org/0009-0004-0169-1795

Access Type

Open Access Thesis

Document Type

thesis

Degree Program

Architecture

Degree Type

Master of Architecture (M.Arch.)

Year Degree Awarded

2023

Month Degree Awarded

May

Abstract

Food culture has long been a fundamental part of the city; as a culturally cohesive urban infrastructure, food culture creates integral shared experiences and is a generator of socioeconomic opportunity. During the COVID-19 pandemic, existing systemic issues of racial segregation and isolation have exacerbated growing concerns of food insecurity within prominent minority neighborhoods of Boston, Massachusetts. The instability created by the lockdown and consequential work-life culture shift reinforces the importance of establishing and maintaining equitable and sustainable pathways of access to food resources and the socioeconomic opportunities food culture can create.

To promote resilience in the post-COVID-19 lockdown city, urban environments will need to be reimagined to incorporate social and economic infrastructures that promote flexibility and maximize entrepreneurial equity, diversity, and opportunity. As a driving force of this equitable change in Jamaica Plain and the surrounding neighborhoods, this thesis proposes a new sustainable food system that is in tune with the regions storied ecological landscapes as well as the current need for mobility in post-COVID-19 urban life. To bridge the gap between historically fragmented regions of the urban fabric, this thesis will propose an infrastructural landmark designed to support the proliferation of food cultures, enhance housing, industrial, and ecological infrastructures, as well as bike and pedestrian mobility to restitch the greater urban fabric of the city of Boston.

This thesis explores the reorganization of a range of modalities of urban food culture into a comprehensive food hub. The Food Hub and associated program will serve as an incubator of socioeconomic opportunity as well as operate as a system of sustainable production and distribution aimed at creating food sovereignty amongst members of the community.

The resolution of these analyses will culminate in an architectonic framework for food culture programs that are primed to support the sustainable and equitable flow of resources, users, and ideas between disparate communities.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7275/35396102

First Advisor

Jordan Kanter

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