Bailey Taylor

A Future Suburbia

The word home has copious meanings. Home means different things to different people; it is a variety of places, cities, collections of memories or relationships.  Home is where community can be formed, ideas safely shared, comfort can be found and possibilities are endless. For some people, especially those who have found home in Winnipeg for most of their lives, home exists in a small suburb of some form, a suburb which is layered with memories of childhood, neighbors who have become friends, and spaces that we remember for the rest of our lives. 

While these words may prompt us to reference our childhood house, the associations of a suburb or of home are in most cases very separate from an actual physical house or structure, these feelings of comfort, safety and happiness come from the relationships formed and the memories made. This leads to a questioning of the value of the physical suburban house, a fenced in backyard, a long driveway and front yard, a formal dining room and a kitchen island with barstools. The North American suburb has a deep history and has come to be an extremely recognizable entity with various associations and connotations attached to them such as lifestyle, gender roles, or family structure. The suburban home comes with a set of assumed traditional domestic rituals. In looking at the evolution of the suburban home, there are specific influences and drivers of change, and as a mini society suburban homeowners continue to build, develop and adapt their homes typically based on larger usually capitalist driven influences. The suburban home has morphed, changed and adapted over many years, it follows trends and attempts to keep up with our everchanging world. It faces demands from its inhabitants to be a perfect sanctuary of comfort, beauty, and a perfect reflection of ourselves. 

The suburb and the suburban home bring into question the overconsumption, land use and climate change impacts of suburbs and they continue to rapidly expand and cities continue to grow in population. Cities continue to sprawl as well as face housing crisis where many are being priced out of the markets and cannot afford to buy homes due to not only increased prices but also inflation. 

This thesis will seek to imagine a state of the world in which greed is no longer an option, where neighbors must learn to share, grow, produce and live holistically as a collective, in an attempt to heal or at least cope with the thousands of years of damage humans have caused to the earth. Thus, allowing the exploration of the potential of the suburban house. What could the suburban house of the future look like? What could it achieve and how could it make a positive impact on people, the economy and the environment while remaining a place of comfort, safety and community?