ELLIE CODY

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A current graduate student in architecture at Rhode Island School of Design (Class of 2024), I am passionate about architecture as a key to strategic systems thinking and healthier, more equitable futures. 

My background in art history informs a context-aware design approach that goes beyond site analysis to dig into social and political pasts as a way to engage with the present. 

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Humble Architecture: Master’s Thesis
Ongoing Project

My thesis is focused on a matrix of questions around resource scarcity, capitalist pressures, and what it can look like to practice ethical architecture. One option, and my primary focus, is what I am calling "humble architecture", which keys back into material intelligence and a broader range of scales, and requires increased collaboration across trades. Major outcomes will include a workbook and workshop syllabus, showing how architectural pedagogy might shift to support designers' ability to respond to the urgent issues and evolved contexts of today. 


Germán Pallares Avitia, Primary Advisor
Aaron Tobey, Secondary Advisor

Resource Library

2023 - Present


Transitional Housing: Townhouses
Providence, RI
With a focus on responding to Rhode Island’s housing crisis, I designed this 400 sqft one-bedroom unit to be built using the CertainTeed prefabricated construction systems - allowing the units to be constructed quickly and inexpensively. The unit design prioritizes natural light and division of space into living and sleeping. 


Housing for the Homeless Advanced Studio
Jonathan Knowles, Course Instructor


Fall 2023


Transitional Housing Part II: Cairn Apartments
Providence, RI 
Following the studio’s work on single-occupancy transitional townhouses, we shifted to an apartment typology with increased unit density, and were assigned sites throughout greater Providence. The individual units were required to be less than 250 sqft and to take into account the cost of construction. Sited riverside in Woonsocket, RI, my design focuses on leveraging a simple construction process - again using the CertainTeed system - to provide private balconies to each unit, while the unit interiors are defined by large windows and a division of sleeping and living zones. 


Housing for the Homeless Advanced Studio
Jonathan Knowles, Course InstructorFall 2023

Objeto-Objetivo Trade+Craft School
El Paso, TX

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The Post-Borderzone Advanced Studio, RISD
Germán Pallares Avitia, Course Instructor

Spring 2023

School Bus Conversion
Ligonier, PA | Ongoing Project

In late summer 2019, my partner Lucas Rosenblatt and I purchased a retired school bus from a depot on Coney Island and drove it to Ligonier, Pennsylvania where it could live next to Lucas’s parents driveway (thank you!). The garage became our workshop, and the Lowes in the next town over our stomping ground. We removed the seats, floor, walls, and old insulation, and renovated the bus into an off-grid home. This was my first deep-dive into hands-on design and construction. 


Resource Library Fall 2019 - Present

Pinwheel Light in Wood

Winter 2023