What if an algorithm could meet the needs of the economic system driving suburban housing development while also designing more diverse building types? One architect has already experimented with this provocative thought experiment.
"American architects have masterminded dozens of suburban housing styles," writes Diana Budds to introduce a radical, technology-enabled departure from that suburban tradition.
One of the problems with that tradition, according to critics of the suburban model, is that the industrialization has "exerted the most influence over how much of the country lives today," according to Budds. That's where John Szot, a Brooklyn-based architect, comes in.
[Szot's] proposal for introducing more diverse architecture into the suburbs is on view in Mass Market Alternatives, a new exhibition at the Boston gallery Pinkcomma. The project shows how algorithmic design could make it just as easy and cost-effective to build diverse suburban architecture as it is for developers to design and build boring tract houses.
The idealistic hope of Szot's experiment: that more visually diverse architecture would appeal to different people. The article includes lots of renderings and plan views to get a taste for the ability of algorithms to take suburban housing to a new stylistic level.
FULL STORY: The Unlikely Way Algorithmic Design Could Transform Suburbia
Oregon Passes Exemption to Urban Growth Boundary
Cities have a one-time chance to acquire new land for development in a bid to increase housing supply and affordability.
Where Urban Design Is Headed in 2024
A forecast of likely trends in urban design and architecture.
Savannah: A City of Planning Contrasts
From a human-scales, plaza-anchored grid to suburban sprawl, the oldest planned city in the United States has seen wildly different development patterns.
Washington Tribes Receive Resilience Funding
The 28 grants support projects including relocation efforts as coastal communities face the growing impacts of climate change.
Adaptive Reuse Bills Introduced in California Assembly
The legislation would expand eligibility for economic incentives and let cities loosen regulations to allow for more building conversions.
LA's Top Parks, Ranked
TimeOut just released its list of the top 26 parks in the L.A. area, which is home to some of the best green spaces around.
City of Rochester
Boston Harbor Now
City of Bellevue
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Mpact Transit + Community
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
City of Birmingham, Alabama
City of Laramie, Wyoming
Colorado Department of Local Affairs
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.