Tag: suburbia | ArchDaily

The Lawn as Battleground: How Domestic Landscaping Became a Symbol of American Identity

Maria-Cristina Florian — Thu, 03 Oct 2024 07:30:00 +0000

The almost cliché image of the white picket fence has become synonymous with the ideals of the American Dream. Behind the fence, there is invariably a perfectly manicured lawn, a green carpet upon which life can unfold. This image and its associations are not, however, accidental. In her book, "Domesticity at War", Beatriz Colomina notices that, since the Second World War, the lawn has taken a central space in the imagination of the country, becoming first a in order to make space for diversity, both social and ecological. symbol of the stability of the homes soldiers were hoping to return to, offering a space where those at home could still perform duties for the nation, and, after the war, propagating the image of an idealized lifestyle, one maintained with hard work and dedication. In recent years, the lawn has emerged once again as a site of conflict, this time between those hoping to preserve this idealized image, and those seeking to break the uniformity in order to make space for diversity, both social and ecological.

What Makes a Good Suburb?

Kaley Overstreet — Tue, 07 Feb 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Suburbs have experienced a sort of renaissance over the last decade. During the COVID-19 pandemic, people fled urban cores in favor of open space and decentralized amenities. For some people, the word “suburb” or “suburbia” flashes images of manicured lawns and rows of identical homes, but what makes a successful suburb may have more in common with cities than you might think.

An Architecture of Turbulence

RZLBD - Reza Aliabadi — Mon, 08 Jul 2019 12:15:00 +0000

A single family house may often have been considered as a very small pixel within any urban context, but the fact is, on average more than fifty percent of the urban fabric is being shaped by these tiny small pixels. It is well said by Tadao Ando: “The house is the building type that can change society.” Thus, this is how a client, a developer, a builder, an architect, or a designer could or should be responsible and willingly participate in a collective effort to shape a better urban context.

The One Redeeming Feature That Brings Humanity to the Sameness of Suburban Sprawl

Josh Stephens — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 09:30:00 +0000

This article was originally published by Common Edge as "The Work of Architecture in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction."

Imagining the Future of Suburbia, From “Freedomland” to “McMansion Hell”

Kate Wagner — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 04:00:00 +0000

This article was originally published on the blog of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, the largest platform for contemporary architecture in North America. The blog invites designers, writers and other contributors to independently express their perspectives on the Biennial across a range of formats. The 2017 Biennial, entitled Make New History, will be free and open to the public between September 16, 2017 and January 6, 2018.

Why the Suburbs Will Be America's Next Great Architectural Testing Ground

Matt Shaw — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 09:30:00 +0000

This article was originally published by The Architect's Newspaper as "The American suburbs are the next fertile ground for architectural and urban experimentation."

MVRDV Partners with Traumhaus to Reinvent Affordable Living in the Suburbs

Vladimir Gintoff — Thu, 14 Apr 2016 09:00:00 +0000

MVRDV and Traumhaus, a producer of low-cost, high-quality homes based on standardized elements, have teamed up to develop a 27,000 square meter project redeveloping former US Army barracks in Mannheim, Germany.

Robert A. M. Stern Advocates the Return of the Garden Suburb

Connor Walker — Thu, 01 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The modern suburb has become an unruly sprawl, homogenous in style and over-dependent on the automobile. However, according to Robert A. M. Stern's new manifesto “Paradise Planned: The Garden Suburb and the Modern City,” there is a superior alternative for suburban development that could attract millennials and preserve quality of life in terms of health, economic savings, and physical safety: the centrally planned, pedestrian-friendly garden suburb. You can learn more about Stern’s 1,072 page manifesto on the garden suburb in this article by the New York Times.

Christoph Gielen's "Ciphers": Aerial Views of American Sprawl

Becky Quintal — Mon, 14 Apr 2014 01:00:00 +0000

From the Publisher. Christoph Gielen’s aerial views offer a look at America’s most aberrant and unusual sprawl forms in ways we usually don’t get to see them: from far above the ground—a vantage point that reveals both the intricate geometry as well as the idiosyncratic allure of these developments. Here, encountering sprawl becomes an aesthetic experience that at the same time leaves us with a sense of foreboding, of seeing the “writing on the wall”. At once fascinating and profoundly unsettling, these photographs detail the potential ramifications of unchecked urbanization. When these settlements were developed, neither distance from work place nor gasoline prices much mattered in determining the locations of new constructions. These places are relics from an era that was entirely defined by a belief in unlimited growth, of bigger is better. The startling extent of those practices, and their inherent wastefulness, come to light in Gielen’s pictures—as if looking at a microcosm of non-sustainability through a giant magnifier.

Video: TRAFFIC / ITDP Mexico

Vanessa Quirk — Tue, 01 May 2012 10:30:32 +0000

The video above, produced by ITDP Mexico is a surprisingly fun look at the dire traffic situation in Mexico City. With the help of two Barbie Ken dolls (who else?), the video describes two types of drivers: the Everyday Driver, who drives everywhere no matter what, and the Shadow Driver, who drives only when it’s most convenient.

Saving Suburbia Part II: Getting the Soccer Moms On Your Side

Vanessa Quirk — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 10:30:45 +0000

This Article is the second of a two-part series, “Saving Suburbia.” If you missed Part I, “Bursting the Bubble”, you can find it here.

Saving Suburbia Part I: Bursting the Bubble

Vanessa Quirk — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:30:41 +0000

Poverty and violence, boarded windows and weedy lawns, immigrants jammed “by the dozen into houses conceived for the Cleavers.” In “Can this Suburb be Saved?,” New York Magazine critic, Justin Davidson, begins by painting a bleak but realistic picture of suburbia today. It’s these conditions that are making thousands flee to cities everyday, making headlines predict the “death of sprawl.” [1]

Phantom Developments of the Southwest

Tim Winstanley — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:00:24 +0000

During the housing boom in Phoenix and the surrounding suburbs, enormous swaths of land were graded and prepared for endless subdivisions as far as the eye could see. Following the burst of the housing market and prolonged recession, these unfinished construction sites have sat vacant – remnants of unbridled optimism in the Valley of the Sun. A recent article on NPR.org discusses some of the alternative visions for re-appropriating these phantom lots that propagate the greater Phoenix area. Various methods of breathing new life into these chasms left behind include rezoning the numerous residential lots for mixed-use, or tearing up the infrastructure and letting nature take back control. For those unfamiliar with the rapid pace of development that was taking place prior to the recession, Maricopa, a small town just south of Phoenix was approving over 600 residential home permits per month. With an inventory of over 16,000 dedicated to residential homes, the measures that are required to remediate the impact of such an ambitious plan need to be ingenious.