Yekang Ko (project lead), Kory Russel, Jacques Abelman, Jun Hak Lee, Barbara Muraca, Adam Deheer, Shelby Meyers, Briana Meier, Sam Alig, Hana Ketterer, Masayo Simon, Jessica Gonzalez, Kennedy Rauh, Audrey Rycewicz
We work with the Opportunity Village Eugene to create a landscape system model that addresses the basic needs (food, energy, and water) for transitional communities. Click here for more details about the project and recent activities.
Primary Question
Opportunity Village Eugene (OVE) is a transitional micro-housing community for unhoused individuals in Eugene, OR. OVE is located on one acre of city-owned property and permitted as a homeless shelter with 30 tiny house units and a maximum capacity of 35 individuals. It is run by SquareOne Villages, a non-profit organization operating since 2013. Due to the small unit size of the tiny houses and features of the site, the residents are vulnerable to extreme seasonal temperature variations, which are becoming hotter and more frequent due to climate change.
Driven by the need for landscapes to provide multiple functions, we proposed a sustainable living forest with hundreds of shade and fruit trees in containers that are oriented across the village to provide opportunity for shade, food-access, and communal living for the residents. Operating like a community-owned nursery, the trees will be managed for revenue generation over time. On-site rainwater harvesting, greywater and urine filtration and reuse, and smart-irrigation systems using sensors will allow sustainable and reliable irrigation for tree growth while minimizing utility costs and the burden on residents. This project aims to design and build amenities that can improve the quality of life, contribute to job skills, and create a sustainable source of revenue for the OVE community.
This project uses a landscape system to engage social justice using design and research to better the conditions of transitional communities in Eugene. The framework from this project creates and tests a real-world flexible landscape model that can be used to create healthy and self-sustaining communities for urban vulnerable populations. This model can be applied to many vulnerable populations around the world including: dense informal urban slums, transitional communities, shelters, and refugee camps.
OVE Student Group Project Manual from the Design for Climate Action Class (Winter 2022)
Jessica Gonzalez Master's Project (Spring 2022)
A story about the L4H and OVE project from the University of Oregon College of Design (Spring 2022)
We collaborate with ambitious non-profit organizations and people. Let's build something great together.