Enclosure & Exposure

Abby Renehan

Thesis

This thesis investigation explores the ideas surrounding enclosure and positive exposure in everyday life. Enclosure describes the security, warmth, shelter, refuge, protection, and privacy. While exposure describes the view, the light, the feeling of being in the open, the expansion, the interaction, and the prospect.

The idea for assisted elderly living mixed with general housing is based on this premise that people of all ages want to feel part of a community. Nursing homes and other elderly housing schemes generally move people away from their current community and place them in an environment where everyone is in the same deteriorating state as themselves. In order to combat this, integrating assisted living with general housing provides opportunities of encounters with a multitude of generations. Dublin City Council has a similar aim in their Quality Housing and Sustainable Communities, Chapter five of their development plan. Where they aim to deliver “good quality housing to cater for diverse housing needs - mix of tenures and typologies to meet people’s full lifecycle and avoidance of large areas of mono use developments.”

It is through the lens of enclosure and exposure that I attempted to carry out my thesis, by exploring ways the two conditions can work together to create varying degrees of interaction and retreat in the city. Sustainable communities and cites require everyone’s involvement and so need to encourage people to interact and engage with their surrounding community. The focus on community is an important aspect to the project as it promotes the notion that the city only exists as the sum of all its inhabitants and it is our responsibility as inhabitants to create the city we want, a city which caters for all ages along with all levels of ability.