Siyang Wan

Breaking Barriers to Friendship
Medium density apartments for all-aged people with ASD living with pets

‘I never want to be alone. I played alone because I failed to talk to others.’¹ Many people with autism have these feelings and may need high levels of assistance in emotional support and communication. These challenges may be mitigated by living with pets, including companion and assistance animals. Besides the benefits of pets to individual, research shows that living with pets can facilitate the neighbourhood interaction. However, the traditional living spaces are often defined by public and private zones that are separated from one another. Meanwhile, both people with autism and their pets are sensory-sensitive so it’s important to design a sensory-neutral experience for them.

This thesis uses the design of an apartment building in Mernda for all-aged people with autism, to focus on pet-related daily activities. The concept breaks the rigid threshold between public and private spaces by designing sensory-neutral living environments to relieve people stress and enhance their communication.

^{[1] Elder Robison, Look Me in the Eye (New York: Crown Publishers, 2007), 35.}

_{Images
01 Final render
02 Daily activities public private analysis
03 Apartment type 1 floorplan
04 Perspective about the threshold between living room and bed room
05 Bedroom perspective about bay window as extension of outside inwards
06 Loft apartment type isometric
07 Loft apartment perspective 01 third space as transitional space under staircase
08 Site plan & site functional diagram
09 Fourth floor plan
10 Roof floor plan
11 Wan_Siyang_West-east section
12 Wan_Siyang_South-north section
13 Wan_Siyang_Exploded functional diagram
14 Wan_Siyang_Perspective about swimming pool breaking threshold
15 Perspective about calming sensory garden as transition between outside and inside
16 Atmospheric isometric drawing}