Nevada has the highest foreclosure rate in the United States. 70,000 homes are affected- meaning 1 in 16 in homes is vacant. Not coincidentally, there are nearly 6,000 Clark County School District students who are now considered homeless. 1/3 of the homeless in Nevada are children under the age of 18, suggesting a much larger floating homeless population.
Re-inventing suburbia today is not a matter of making better houses or improving suburban planning. This project, although highly speculative, seeks to suggest a means of closing the gap between a near-absurd excess of new but vacant suburban homes across the nation, and our tragic, burgeoning homeless population.
We proceed from a Gordon Matta-Clark like vivisection of the typical subdivision. Each house within a standardized block is subdivided into four unequal units separated by a 3 meter wide gap that provides communal access and light. The interiors of each unit are reconfigured and capped with double glazed plates. The glass offers both a means of delivering acoustical and light control (via electrified privacy film.) Thermal control is delivered by employing the cavity space as a temperature buffer.
The ambition of re-envisioning the suburb must address what to do with the human as well as physical fall-out created by failed suburban development models and toxic financial speculation. Until we address the literal and metaphorical implications of these issues we are just gilding the suburban lily.
You’d think you could do that with cookie cutter tract housing. So who gets the left 1/3 of the garage?
I just wanted to say that I think this is my favorite submission. Love that its so far outside the box, so to speak – and that it’s making a social/political point about excess, more than its offering a feasible proposal. Dope.
sweet. reminds me of ray liotta complaining about the pasta in exurbia at the end of ‘good fellas’. it would make an ideal subdivision for a posthumous, post-minimalist witness protection program. nice to imagine matta-clark and robert smithson already in residence(s?), with eva hesse, and now sol lewitt, down the street. really beautiful, eerie renderings.
This is cool.
why the 90º angle?
WOW – why is this not a finalist?!?!
I love the concept. Now, lets build it!
Conceptually, this is a great way forward, but in reality, these homes could be easily partitioned without incurring all the extra costs and expenses.
Part of the atrocity of suburbs is the amount of paved space (as in area of road per home accessed is gross). Couldn’t the space between buildings be a little greener??
This has already proven to be an effective way of increasing density. It has been used in at least Auckland, NZ. Called a ‘conversion’ or ‘villa conversion’many homes especially in inner suburbs (c. 1900) have been divided c.1950-60. Today these conversions are reverting back to single dwellings mainly due to gentrification.
Las ciudades no pueden seguir creciendo de manera desproporcionada, con suburbios interminables, la evolucion de una ciudad debe ser el mas acorde con la integración de los espacios donde la funcionalidad, la cercania y la conectividad urbana no se desmangue……. Lo que no quiere decir que esto este mal …..
it has a rather remarkable blueprint plan and i could see it changing the way we look at houses for generations to come it mostly certain ly change the way i look at house forever.