Christian Ayala Lopez

Christian Ayala López's research looks at family-owned rural cooperative housing to create design typologies that address heirs’ property issues. In underserved rural communities, a historical lack of access to legal resources has left heirs’ properties — characterized by long-term informal shared ownership without clear titles — financially constrained and vulnerable to predatory practices. Families living on heirs’ properties face financial challenges and legal hurdles to building, but life on these shared properties also offers a kinship network that support family resilience.

His research goal is to design a housing typology for multi-generational living on shared land, within a legal structure to improve financial access and build wealth.