Architecture grad’s thesis rethinks the social construct of housework

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Jackie Zheng, a recent Penn State architecture graduate in the College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School, was named the winner of the Department of Architecture’s 2025 Kossman Design Thesis Award for his proposal that offers solutions as to how architects can provide resources to vulnerable populations as an integral part of a city.

Zheng, a Schreyer Honors College graduate who hails from Wallingford, explored a potential infrastructure that can exist under his thesis proposal, which focused on single parents in Philadelphia.

“This group accounts for more than half of all households in the city, which is a number close to 80,000 families with a total of 9.1 million single parents nationwide,” he said.

Zheng further explained that he wanted his undergraduate thesis to “…address a problem that I was interested in and [that] has significant social implications while also being practical.”

Titled “RE:MOTHERING,” his proposal seeks to establish an Amniotic City, a framework for “city making” that emphasizes the importance of housework and mothering as a public good.

According to Zheng, his proposal redefines the idea of “mothering” as a service not limited to the traditional cisgender woman in a family as a socially expected role “nor as an activity only provided to living things,” and seeks to eliminate the invisible, isolated nature of housework.

“By creating a legal, social and architectural model that supports mothering as a collective activity by any individual for all populations as a public good, it is possible to finally have less work for the mother,” he said.

Zheng’s inspiration came from examining how labor exploitation still occurs in current societies, a topic he took an interest in during a directed research studio course with Pep Avilés, associate professor of architecture and Stuckeman Career Development Professor in Design.

“What drew me to looking into the construct of housework as a sex-specific expectation was how pervasive yet invisible it is in many contemporary societies,” Zheng said. “I wanted to take a deeper dive into the construct and understand why such a structure still exists when gender equality has made significant strides and will, hopefully, make many more.”  

Winning the Kossman Award, he said, represents the culmination of knowledge he gained during his five years at Penn State, from the people with whom he has worked to the places he has traveled in pursuit of that knowledge.

“I hope that my contribution to academia through this thesis highlights the need for architectural interventions that nurture people as services and goods provided directly, accessibly and indiscriminately,” Zheng said. “It is not just about populations that have been classified as vulnerable but caring for all people as an inherent part of architecture in an increasingly demanding and fast-paced world.”

The jury for this year’s Kossman reviews comprised Lily Chi, associate professor of architectural design, theory and history at Cornell University; Matthew Mindrup, director of the bachelor of architecture and environments program at the University of Sydney; and Erkin Öza, associate professor of architecture and associate dean for academic affairs at the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning.

Fellow recent graduate Jonathan Choi earned an honorable mention in the competition.

The annual Kossman Design Thesis Award is presented to the most deserving fifth-year student in the professional bachelor of architecture program for excellence in design based on their senior thesis, as recommended by the faculty and the jury to the head of the Department of Architecture.

Named for 1949 Penn State architectural engineering alumnus Paul Kossman, the thesis competition began in 1990 and has since become a coveted award among fifth-year architecture students.