Up Sucker Creek

Up Sucker Creek
Photo Courtesy of the Lake Oswego Library

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Antidote to suburban shame

This is for all Lake Oswegans who feel embarrassed to tell people they live in the SUBURBS.  I know you're out there - you're the ones who look at every piece of land and think about how it can be transformed into something taller, denser and more vibrant.

This design contest is from 2009.  Unfortunately there was only one such re-envisioning of the wastelands known as suburbia.  Perhaps the vacant big box stores did not come to pass as had been predicted.  Maybe it was because people refused to move out of their McMansions, or that someone realized more people are moving TO the suburbs than away from them.  Reality bites.

Seriously, I think the designs are wonderfully creative and some may find practical use somewhere someday.  But to declare suburbia a misbegotten lifestyle worthy of transformation (re-burbanizing) is elitism run amok.  So I present these ideas for their inventiveness, and thought-provoking ideas, but not as solutions to (and not for planners to write codes for)...suburbia!  

See finalist designs and explanations at the link below.  

Reburbia

We are delighted to announce the winners of the 2009 Reburbia Competition, sponsored jointly by Dwell and Inhabitat. The competition challenged architects, designers and concerned citizens to come up with solutions that would address the problems that plague present-day suburbia by envisioning different scenarios for the future. Proposals tackled foreclosed McMansions, vacant big box stores, strip malls, parking lots and more with design fixes ranging from community agriculture and algae-based biofuels to zeppelin-based transit and pools transformed into water treatment plants. The competition drew over 400 entries from countries all over the world. 


Entrepreneurbia: Rezoning Suburbia for Self-Sustaining Life
by Urban Nature, F&S Design Studio and Silverlion Design

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