Marwa el-Ashmouni completed her thesis in 2006 while a graduate student at Ball State University. Titled "Imagining the Alchemy of Shrinkage between the Real and Ideal: A Resilient Design in Evolution in Flint, Michigan," her abstract reads as follows:

This thesis is an attempt to improve the economic conditions of homeless people, either scrappers or squatters living in abject poverty, in the shrinking city of Flint by trying to balance the social problems of the city. This balance in the social life will not be real unless there is a kind of resilient architecture introduced that is able to adjust and be adjusted to the degradation in the social and economic conditions in the shrinking cities. Such a resilient architecture, from which the self-built spirit may spur, may be the only way to give the poor their lost dignity.

The specific research deals with the problem of shrinkage in the Rust Belt cities in the USA and the means of its improvement by adopting and interpreting three terms: evolution, resilience, and alchemy, all considered from a social perspective. Suggesting a resilient architecture design project in the particular city of Flint, Michigan relies on the large number of the homeless people living in these devastated places.

Shrinking cities, where people live in a state of flux all the time, are significantly insecure and weighty. The potentially profound role of the architecture profession to work within poor societies and to assist them in the execution of their spiritual needs is considered through several key questions. Can architects play a role in building a resistant community? What kind of architecture do we collectively want to combat the degradation of the world? The key question is: Will architecture be able to activate this self-built spirit by reusing some of the leftover materials available in the distress and deconstruction of Flint? In this context, the architects' ability to intervene by providing an implementation proposal designed to use the city materials is investigated.

Such an intervention of the architect will be effective when the potentials of those who are homeless are empowered. Therefore, I suggest an initial idea for a particular design proposal titled “Scrap and Build: On Our Own Village” that could be used as a catalyst for self-builders' spirit. The project is seeking a resilient new vision for the future of shrinking cities, which necessitates surpassing the barriers that exist in the real complexities in these people's lives.

Internal Links

Deconstruction: Flint

Flint Expatriates

House: Detroit

Soul of a Black Cop: Flint

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