December | 2009 | Michael Lu's Blog

D3 Competition Boards

December 12, 2009 Michael Leave a comment

The once explosive growth of exurban subdivisions in the greater Metropolitan Phoenix area has halted abruptly leaving dozens of communities largely uncompleted. Plummeting home prices, continued subprime delinquencies, and tight credit markets have led innumerable home builders to declare bankruptcy or simply ‘walk away’ from unfinished communities. As a means to address this pervasive issue, our studio was assigned the task of proposing new models of exurbia grounded in sustainability.

The following proposes a‘carbon neutral’ subdivision.The traditional North American house serves a base line for parametric modeling and shifts in shape according to sun and wind to capture energy. A third interpretation of the common house typology rests upon the cultural notion of sun worship. A series of single family dwellings chart the movements of the sun on both the longest and shortest days of the year. In order to further persuade cautious populations on the benefits of sustainability one may integrate green technologies with iconic house forms or simply imbue residential designs with a significance greater than that of the occupant. The result is permanence in architecture.