Walkability in Suburbia

Growing up in Brooklyn, NY, everything we needed was within a miles radius from corner stores which we called “Bodegas” to schools and if you wanted to venture out you could ride the subway or take the bus. Owning a car in New York City was not necessary and those who did used it for recreation. My grandfather owned and car and ten years later when it was given to me it only had twenty thousand miles on it, people in the city always walked to where they wanted to go because it was cheap and convenient. I never understood the lifestyle of suburbia until I was twenty-five years old and moved to Tampa, Fl; here you depended on a car as if they were your legs and public transportation was almost non-existent. Just recently I started to take notice of the problems in suburbia and “walkability” was one of them. The other day I was at a stop light a noticed a young couple with a baby trying to cross the street. They were probably headed to the local Target but their mission looked impossible because the streets were so wide and the cars were so fast. I had to question why the suburbs are accessible to only those who have a car. I never had this problem living in Brooklyn. Yesterday, I overheard an overly excited girl talking to her friend on the phone about her new college experience. She was excited that her new school had sidewalks and the mall was only a mile away. This made me think of all the possibilities people would have if suburbia walk were accessible to people more than vehicles.

Brief

Problem Statement:

Architecture and “The American Dream” have been neglected by America’s suburban neighborhoods leaving suburbia with an over abundance of houses, cars, and strip malls. Suburbia was once a place where families could obtain “The American Dream” and live minutes from the city. Today, suburban neighborhoods have created a large gap between the public and the city becoming merely a buffer spaces between major cities. In result, suburbia has lost its urban identity and connection to the city. Lately, suburban living has been associated by cost vs. location; the further away you live from the city the less expensive it is to reside, causing people to live further away from the city. As a remedy to urban sprawl, retrofit along with adaptive reuse needs to take place, creating hybrid urban communities.


Questions:

1. How to bring back urban living to an uncontrollable suburbia?

2. What can be proposed to conserve land and reduce the amount of sprawl?

3. How to fill the gaps left behind by urban sprawl and bond suburbia to the city?


Objectives:

• To design an urban archetype that can serve as an example of retrofitting suburbia.

• To reduce the spread of urban sprawl by retrofitting abandoned and underutilized structures for dwelling, working, and social activities.

• To reduce the dependence of cars in modern day suburbia and create a walkable community.


Purpose:

• To meet the needs of modern day people and redefine “The American Dream”.

• To stop the spread of urban sprawl and reduce emissions and energy consumption.

• To find a new purpose for the strip malls and the factories suburbia abandoned.


Process/Program:

• Study the typology of suburbia

• Study the urban fabric of Tampa, Florida and its suburbs