Aura incorporates the indoors to the outdoors through window placement and scale focused on bringing in light into the home. Through plants thriving off the light brought in, the home is further connected to the outdoors in its most public spaces. The home uses light to bring comfort and the placement of windows to create privacy and combined linear flow of most private–the bedroom–to most public–with the open living, dining, and kitchen space.

Designed for the Ahimsa Collective and Oakland City Challenge, Aura takes note of the details and elements most important to the comfort of those who were formerly incarcerated.

Tiny Houses is an architectural project focused on the development of a site in Oakland, California. The site is designed to be a community area to house and aid the previously incarcerated. A major part of the design is tiny houses, mobile housing facilities that are designed to house previously incarcerated people while they work to get back on their feet. 

The project uses architecture methods and the study of neuroarchitecture to design the environment to be comfortable and relaxing for the users. Elements such as natural light were used to create a dynamic environment while variable space maximized the storage and living space within an area. Integrating nature is important for the user’s mental well-being as well as keeping the space alive and comfortable.

Amedeo's Brief: ‘The Pod’ is a project creating comfortable, livable tiny homes for formerly incarcerated individuals. These homes are part of a larger community that aims to solve the problem of lack of support for incarcerated people who have recently entered society. Unemployment rates for reentrants today are higher than U.S. unemployment rates during the Great Depression. This lack of support often leads to recidivism (re-entering prison after being released), with 79% of released state prisoners being rearrested within 5 years. This project seeks to solve this by combining cozy living spaces with a socially and economically supportive community to provide a better environment for newly released incarcerated people.

Caroline's Brief: The Pod is a comfortable and private space for formerly incarcerated people who are returning to society. Previously imprisoned people are sequestered from housing, employment, and society because of credit checks. Due to their status it is hard to obtain loans, credit, and open bank accounts. This causes the state prisoner recidivism rate to be around 68 percent  within the first three years after release. The Pod provides people recently released from the prison system with a permanent living space that allows them to get back on their feet. Reentry often causes people to feel isolated and unwanted. Having a place that is a part of a small community to call home  will allow formerly incarcerated people to feel supported as well as ease some of the stress of getting back on their feet.

Anna's brief 

           Shipped Home is a model affordable tiny home developed for formerly incarcerated people in Oakland, California. The design was based on thorough research on life in the prison system and rehabilitating the imprisoned people of the country. The criminal justice system, by and large, focuses on the punishment and not the rehabilitation of these people, leaving them without any education, or a criminal record, preventing them from getting a job, and not allowing them to live in public housing. People incarcerated more than once are thirteen times more likely to be homeless than the general public. This system not only underserves and severely harms a massive percentage of our population, with the highest incarcerated population in the world but also targets the poor and minorities with extreme prejudice. 

          This project aims to attack that problem, creating affordable housing that allows the formerly incarcerated to not only live with a roof over their head but live with dignity. There are few opportunities for formally incarcerated lifers to get jobs and rent apartments. Shipped home allows these people to regain their lives, rehabilitate themselves, and reintegrate into society. Leaving these people on the streets only further pushes them toward recidivism. A shipped home allows for an open-feeling tiny house with plenty of space, air circulation, and an entertaining room. Small but mighty, this home has a full bathroom, a loft bed, a full kitchen, a living room, an outdoor deck, and tons of storage space, allowing the people living in these tiny homes more agency over their lives than ever before.

Solis is a tiny home designed for people coming out of a life prison sentence to help integrate them back into the world. This was designed to create a tiny home community for recently incarcertated individuals to feel less if an outsider when reentering society. Recidivism rates in the U.S. are some of the highest in the world with almost 44% of criminals released returning to prison within their first year out.

This was designed for incarcertaed individulas who are renetering society. This design focuses on light and openness to allow for the home for feel bigger as well as using a open floor plan for the kitchen and living areas to allow for the most possible space. The second floor features the bedroom bathroom and office space. The second floor features a more private closed off feel with walls separating the rooms to allow for comfort in the most vulnerable spaces. In addion to maxmise the use of outdoor spaces the bottom of the tiny home rolls out to allow for a patio for different outdoor events. The home has big windows in the shape of a right triangle going up the 2 long sides.