ABSTRACT
The seemingly inexorable spreading of suburban sprawl demands analogous description and apocalyptic terminology. It spreads like a virus, floats on the landscape like debris, chokes the environment like a weed. The recent disruption of this inexorable spread invites new comparisons: the analogy of the archipelago invokes geologic forces that describe both the pressures that created suburbia as well as the systems that underlie the present state of crises. The archipelago analogy describes economically underwater areas of the neighborhood as a new type of navigable landscape. By utilizing the lens of the architect, change is catalyzed within an existing development through positing value-based design strategies. These strategies are an ethical response to those previously implemented by developers and planners lacking foresight and a larger view of responsibility. The architect creates a system to be deployed by interest groups. This thesis explores the implications of pirating previously built developments. The created navigational system catalyzes a polytopian vision that tests the relationship of systemic and local infrastructural intervention while positively exploiting the potentialities of suburbia as an informational and material ecosystem. The citizen agent pirates the suburbs: the material and infrastructure within the suburbs is too valuable to not be opportunistically re-appropriated. A pirate sees light posts as a harvest-able forest, property-lines as irrelevant and both people and water as treasure. This system of resource reallocation, cross-referenced with values such as connectivity to transit arteries, natural resource exploitation and the creation of networked micro-economies creates a new and productive layer on the suburban system.
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The seemingly inexorable spreading of suburban sprawl demands analogous description and apocalyptic terminology. It spreads like a virus, floats on the landscape like debris, chokes the environment like a weed. Recent disruptions in this apparently unyielding spread invite new comparisons: the analogy of the archipelago invokes geologic forces that describe not only the pressures that have created suburbia but also the events that underlie its present state of crisis. The material and very existence of the infrastructure that has gone into the creation of the suburbs is too valuable to not be opportunistically re-appropriated. By leveraging potential economic values, it becomes possible to interject a new way of navigating the previous goals of development. This navigational system is less about existing convention, and more about the way that a pirate would evaluate the potentialities of the suburban ecosystem. A system cross-referenced with other types of value such as connectivity to transit arteries, resource exploitation and micro-economies creates a
new, economically sustainable suburban ecosystem.
© 2011 Lauren Tichy
