PROJECTS

Visualizing Density

Exploring comfortable density for Hawai‘i

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The Hawaiian archipelago has a diversity of urban fabric ranging from rural agricultural lands to compact suburban zones to some of the nation’s most bustling urban contexts. Designing for these settings and considering current and future demands requires balancing the needs of the larger community with the concerns of existing neighborhood residents.

This project centers on density studies and visualizations, including local multifamily housing typologies and a survey of half-mile neighborhood samples spanning rural to urban. Our findings informed a series of massing studies for new housing developments and strategies for comfortable density across the state.

A component of this project, ”Plan Your Neighborhood,” was developed in collaboration with architecture firm Kohn Pedersen Fox and their urban interface initiative, KPF UI.

“Plan your Neighborhood” is built on KPF UI’s award-winning software “Scout.” For this project, Scout was specifically tailored to the Hawaiian context and landscape.

Plan Your Neighborhood visualizes different massing possibilities for a neighborhood all the way from rural to suburban to urban environments. Urban contexts are based on sites located along Oahu’s future rail.

For more information please visit KPF UI →

FOR

The Visualizing Density project was conducted for the Hawai‘i Public Housing Authority through the University of Hawai‘i Community Design Center, in parallel and in relation to Future of Hawai‘i’s Housing project. The series of surveys and massing studies completed during this project informed the Holistic Housing Design Toolkit.

IMPACT

Presented at: EPIC 2019: Agency, Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference, November 9-12, 2019. Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence, Rhode Island. The 20th Annual Pacific Building Trade Expo, Honolulu, HI. October 1, 2019. 108th ACSA Annual Meeting: OPEN, virtual conference June 2020.