THE RHEIN-MAIN CREATIVE COLLECTIVE

“How can architecture reveal and encourage symbiosis between the informal and formal economies of the arrival city?”

This thesis project explores the viability of a new semi-regulated urban block that facilitates an emerging creative class. Seeking to connect creative professionals with arrivals whose creativity is derived from adapting to new ways of living, it offers informal users the opportunity to translate unique skills into opportunity of formal employment and exposes formal users to new forms of innovation in a non-traditional creative environment. By addressing Offenbach’s desire for a new creative economy the project proposes a holistic response to how symbiosis between informal and formal economies can not only be celebrated but help reform the relationship between the established and the arrival city.