Lot 30: Rerouting Suburbia

In architectural practice professionals deal with a number of fascinating issues daily. From clients to contractors, politics to energy concerns, material usage to money management, architects of the world have the amazing task of delivering a product that influences the physical and mental environments of its users. Evolving from a conversation regarding urban sprawl and suburban housing, this project is aimed at finding a way to inform as well as plant a seed of impact in our rapidly expanding cities. Whereas in local contemporary developments like Fallbrook, (a residential development on the northwest side of Lincoln) the single family house is a projection of a sentimental urban dream predicted to fail because the conditions it is based upon no longer exist. Even in more progressive communities houses are reminiscent of the owner’s imagery of a house. The investigation here is to explore the house as the nucleus for change, where the perception of a house can be challenged. If we as architects accept peoples need to live their suburban dream, then the investigation will be to combine tools of ecological efficiency and space, rather than form-making to produce a kind of “contagiousness”, which could effect not the growth but the impact of our growing cities