From primitive wheels to a contemporary autonomous vehicle, modes of transportation played a pivotal role to create the artery of town and cities. Once the streets were for pedestrians are now for the cars and the city is for parking infrastructure. Regardless of the user and context, the space for people inside a city has been and is being marginalized. Autonomous technology has created a new window to re-think the built environment to recreate humane habitat that is sensitive to the environment for both present and future cities by taking the advantage of the technology but not being dominated by the technology.

The thesis explores the mutual feedback between the built environment and autonomous vehicles that will promote community and environmental welfare inside a city. The thesis presents a design proposition based on ‘unconventional shared autonomous vehicles’ that responds to user-specific needs and a new typology of urban planning and architecture addressing these autonomous vehicles. At the same time, a new typology of shared autonomous vehicles and supporting infrastructure is proposed that incorporates the basic packaging of the vehicles and range of services.

The Google Transit Village at San Jose in California will serve as a case study to explore the fusion of AV technology that eliminates the needs for dedicated traffic and parking infrastructure but promotes more greenery and a new typology for a sustainable office environment. The proposition can be adapted or extended in macro and micro scale.