In recent years, debates about how architecture must respond to intensifying climate pressures have moved to the forefront of disciplinary discourse. After many global catastrophes, communities often rush to rebuild, prioritizing speed and efficiency over long‑term resilience. These reactive approaches can overwhelm or erase the human scale, replacing familiar landscapes with infrastructural solutions. In response, this project explores a speculative design that imagines new ways for coastal communities to evolve without sacrificing their cultural and ecological identities. It proposes a world in which architecture becomes a living, growing structure that is capable of adapting to future environmental pressures while remaining deeply connected to its site.

For this project, I will conduct precedent analyses and produce a series of collages, architectural drawings, and exploratory diagrams to explore ways a future settlement might self-regulate in the case of climate catastrophe or flooding. Rooted in the seaside suburban landscape of the South Shore, particularly Marshfield, Massachusetts, the project applies research of historic speculative megastructures to imagine ways that elevated forms could shape a flood‑resistant community that grows from the existing town character. Drawing from the local vernacular, the proposal envisions an adaptive architectural system that remains grounded in place while responding to an evolving coastal landscape.

The aim of this project is to design a prototype. A home that does not merely house life, but improves it. Much of the current architecture in suburbia mirrors the disconnectedness of modern life: the interior is a series of compartmentalized rooms, the exterior becomes a boundary that separates, and the neighborhood can become an array of islands rather than a connected network. In this context, single family housing protects one family but isolates it from many.

Meanwhile, the affordability crisis grows and carbon emissions accelerate. These crises are typically treated by separate disciplines for example economists and environmental scientists, yet they converge physically in the built environment. Housing materials directly affect both ecological health and affordability of homes. If these crises touch the same physical space, perhaps that space can also be part of their repair. The hands-on nature of superadobe construction has the ability to foster human and social capital within communities while providing answers to affordability and material accessibility as well. It must be acknowledged that this design proposal will not solve all the problems listed above, but it serves as an example of what forward thinking projects could do to help our society. 

A final built model will represent this prototype physically, but the purpose of this paper is to show how the design emerges from research more than intuition. Three interconnected pillars support my thesis: affordability, sustainability, and community. These ideas converge in a single architectural proposal that reframes the home as a restorative device rather than a financial commodity.

Architecture has long existed at a point of tension between humanity’s search for order and nature’s refusal to be controlled. This tension has shaped architectural and urban histories, often producing static structures that isolate themselves from surrounding ecological systems. This thesis examines how architecture might be recalibrated through biophilic design principles, ecological thinking, and utopian theory. Collectively, these strands form a speculative framework I call Cyclotopia.

Cyclotopia examines how buildings can support equilibrium, adaptability, and cyclical reciprocity by drawing from environmental processes such as the water cycle and seasonal change. By analyzing past utopian and quasi-utopian projects, including Hundertwasser’s work and the failed socialist experiment of Nowa Huta, alongside contemporary frameworks such as the Living Building Challenge (LBC) and green spectacles like Bosco Verticale, this study identifies both the ambitions and limitations that have shaped the built environment. 

The creative application highlights existing modernist conditions at the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus, specifically University Health Services, the adjacent Durfee Conservatory, and the parking lot that divides them. This site presents an opportunity to connect a clinical environment to the restorative benefits of a biodiverse environment, while amplifying existing social and ecological cycles on campus. The proposed mental health and wellness hub explores how architecture can function as a cyclical system by integrating environmental feedback loops across human habits, building systems, and site ecologies. By grounding utopian speculation in architectural reality, the project investigates how natural cycles can inform biophilic architectural strategies that produce adaptive and restorative environments over time.

This thesis investigates the uneven global presence of hostels and examines why they flourish in various European and Southeast Asian cities while remaining limited in many parts of the United States. It explores how public transit, spatial organization, and cultural expectations of privacy shape the success of hostels. It also asks how hostels can positively influence local ecosystems by redirecting tourism spending toward independent businesses and creating youth-oriented social infrastructure. It seeks to understand how architecture can create private spaces that still encourage communal engagement, whether through bedroom layouts, common spaces, or the hostel's spatial planning. It also considers how social-spatial expectations differ across these regions and how the concept of shared space can remain consistent while adapting to different cultural and urban contexts around the world.

Through comparative site analysis of selected high-traffic urban centers in the United States (California, Massachusetts, Texas), Europe (Italy, Switzerland), and Asia (Japan, Thailand), the research evaluates how urban form, walkability, public transit access, proximity to restaurants and cultural attractions, youth-oriented activities, and mixed-use density influence the viability of hostel development. Alongside literature reviews, case studies, and personal reflection on my study abroad experiences. In doing so, I will cultivate a well-rounded idea of what enhances or deters people from staying in hostels.

By reframing the hostel as social and economic infrastructure rather than merely budget lodging, this project proposes architectural strategies that balance community interaction with personal comfort, positioning hostels as catalysts for neighborhood activation and culturally engaged urban life.