Our scheme proposes to thicken the arteries of our burbs as the remedy for their future. New housing is proposed above the roadways in-between the existing suburban fabric. The density of the burb is dramatically increased. The new housing promotes a new typology. A sinuous ribbon that weaves between the McMansions promoting mixed forms of living that offers an alternative to the single family dwelling.

Smaller housing modules, shared housing and extended family living are all accommodated in the strip. Opportunities for community interaction are increased. The ‘backyard’ is relocated to the roof, and becomes community parkland, providing new recreational opportunities and a new view of suburbia. The new density increases the patronage of public transport making the system more sustainable.

When the strip converges at an intersection the strands cluster and rise vertically to create a mini-city of apartments. These clusters of high density living encourage the development of support services around their base. The rooftop parkland becomes the façade of the towers transforming into a vertical garden.

When the strip terminates, the ubiquitous cul-de-sac creates the opportunity for a unique suburban event space such as skate park, gallery, restaurant or perhaps just a new take on the ‘corner store’.

In time the patterns of living in these commuter suburbs shifts. People want to live in the strip. The demand for the McMansion falters. Slowly they are replaced by parkl

Recycled and repurposed from five 40′ high-cube shipping containers the 540 Eco-Dwelling is a modular design using a composite highly insulated skin, solar panel array, and wind turbines to condition its inhabitants and produce energy.

Instead of consuming energy it is time to conserve and produce energy. By plugging in the 540 Eco-Dwelling into the suburban grid the energy hog McMansion will be forgotten architecture. By using this design vast areas of suburbia would be transformed into sustainable communities working towards a better and less energy dependent future.

The huge amount of vacant land in the abandoned american suburbs can be used to increase the ruralization of the city. We propose themed neighborhoods, specialized on a few plots of land: the sheep district, the chicken district, the pig district… This would allow neighbours to get in touch to keep or exchange their animals.

We propose developments which are sold as packs.
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House
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Land
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Stockbreeding

Each housing type is associated with a species or a culture. Housing standards are associated with agricultural standards.

Each pack is ready to use. It comes with a user guidebook, a training if needed, a one year guarantee and assistance service (an assistant farmer can be required).

This proposition requires an advertisement campaign. A persuasive propaganda promotes the idea of miniature farming and breeding, and the dreams associated with a rural environment (peasant idyll, family arch…), very far from a real farmer’s life.

Airbia proposes a new eco-friendly and efficient transportation system linking the suburbs and city centre. Corresponding to the lack of coherent public transportation in the majority of the sprawling cities, a set of airships is designed to form an additional network over the urban tissue.

The proposed network bases its flexibility on the limited required infrastructure (just overground platforms) and facilities, easy hovering, landing and passenger access. The target is to develop a set of routes covering nodal points of the suburbia, travelling all the way to the borders of the city centre creating a ring around it. This network would potentially replace the use of cars and trains as transportation between the suburbs and the city centers.

Being inspired by the zeppelin technologies, the proposed airship engages the idea using helium to hover, which is proven to be a sustainable and economical approach.
The proposed airship has a capacity to carry 400 people and travel with an avarage of 150 km/h speed on a hight between 30 – 500 meters. Instead of having a major airship station, Airbia proposes a more dispersed network of station-platforms, that constist of staircases, lifts and ticket spaces. This way the system becomes much more flexible, since these drop off – pick up platforms can be placed almost anywhere in the city.

As more businesses in the old suburbs vacate, either going out of business or moving to the new suburbs, large expanses of retail and parking lot real-estate become empty. This empty obsolescence is an opportunity for a new kind of business and landscape: It’s an opportunity to reclaim the productive pastoral atmosphere of the land before sprawl.

This landscape would not be of an antiquated culture or a superficial culture, but a layering of ideals – sustainable practices of the past, new energy efficient technologies, and contemporary culture.

The example presented is a reversal of a function for a big box grocery store, from retailer of food – food detached from processes from which it came to be – to producer of food. The parking lot becomes a park-farm. The inside of the big box becomes a greenhouse and restaurant. Asphalt farming techniques allow for layering of soil, compost in containers on top of asphalt. The big box store’s roof is partially replaced with a greenhouse roof. Other details, such as the reversal of parking lot light poles into solar trees that hold photovoltaics can be implemented. One can imagine pushing a shopping cart through this suburban farm and picking your produce right from the vine, with the option to bring your harvest to the restaurant chef for preparation and eating your harvest on the spot. As other types of businesses become obsolete, out of fashion, they may need to imagine themselves as part of a productive suburb.

For the Biofuel movement to flourish it will require cheap, flat, modular space networked into national and state highway systems. Abandoned big box stores provide these conditions. With little investment, these flat pavement deserts could be converted to bio-fuel generators.

Currently, algae represents the strongest case as a feedstock: it is inexpensive, it grows on waste nutrients, and it produces on the order of 5000-15,000 gallons of oil per acre per year. That’s 10x its next yield competitor (palm oil)! Algae-oil, now emblazoned oilgae, is perfectly suited for production in modular bio-refineries inhabiting abandoned big box stores. Further, the ample parking lot space could better perform as a solar collector array and wind turbine field, ready to recharge new electric vehicles being manufactured and sold by U.S. and foreign auto makers.

Instead of pumping out carbon-intensive goods and consumers, “Big Box Biofuel” absorbs carbon as the algae grow and output clean fuel. Within one abandoned Lowe’s, Home Depot or Wal-Mart – oilgae production could easily exceed 100,000 gallons per year. With solar and wind power adding around 200 kW of clean electric power per day – numerous electric vehicles could be charged for millions of carbon free miles every year. Get rid of the faux facades and abandoned landscapes, and let’s plug into these infrastructural behemoths with scalable, renewable energy.

I imagine a suburbia where other animals are given living spaces amongst the spaces humans live in, where people without access to garden spaces are still able to grow their own food, where vertical spaces are not just hostile spaces devoid of life instead they host mini-ecosystems with diverse flora and fauna. These are the concepts behind Brick Habitats. It is a modular system of bricks which allows us to create a wide range of features on the side of our buildings including habitats for plants and animals, water bowls/baths, perches, shelters, feeders.

The habitats for animals encourage non-human animals back into areas they previously inhabited before urban sprawl took over, whilst bringing life and positive energies into urban areas. The cavities provide nesting spaces for cavity-nesters like house sparrows, starlings, tits and possibly swifts. The extensions alone provide perches and overhangs and shelters for nest-building. The bowls collect rainwater and can also be used to direct water from the roof water pipes or windows into the plant pots. The cavities can also be filled with reed to provide homes for insects. The habitats for plants can be propagated with a variety of edible crops and native species for wildlife. Salad vegetables and herbs can be cultivated closest to the window. Seasonal perennials like tomatoes and artichokes can be grown further away. Native species grown for wildlife can be located in less accessible spots as they are almost self-sustaining.

Strip malls are everywhere. While they provide convenient access and affordable commercial space for a diverse tenant mix, their expansive surface parking and lack of human-scaled connection to adjacent neighborhoods have a deadening impact on our communities. A universal shift in the way we treat this pervasive typology: such as converting parking lots into farms – could result in massive change.

PARKING LOT AS FARM. Bumper Crop is a soil-less farm irrigated with reclaimed waste water and suspended above the strip mall parking lot to shade the ground plane and reverse the heat-island effect. By means of a membrane bioreactor, reclaimed water from the city sewer main supplies the overhead crop with nutrient-rich irrigation water creating an oasis in the asphalt desert. Land currently used for parking only is reclaimed for urban agricultural production thereby preserving undeveloped land and repairing the ecosystems that have been sacrificed for soil-based agriculture.

STRIP MALL AS NEIGHBOR. By repurposing its back edge to address the parking lot and the alley, the strip mall becomes accessible by foot for the adjacent residential community. Up-zoning the residential properties adjacent to the strip mall alley allows for live-work structures to promote small business opportunities within walking distance of homes. The vacant alley, a virtual no mans land, is transformed into a vital pedestrian link. The transition from commercial to residential is eased and the pedestrian is invited to reclaim the strip mall site.