DISTILLING SUBURBAN MYTH: SEMIOTIC DESIGN FOR DENSER SUBURBAN LIVING

Abstract

How can understanding the semiotics of American suburbia inform the design of more sustainable and culturally resonant housing models in communities experiencing unsustainable development pressure?

Despite being the most preferred housing type in the U.S., detached single-family housing is environmentally damaging due to high embodied carbon, land consumption leading to sprawl and CO2 emissions, plus heating/cooling inefficiency. This thesis argues that evolving the resource-consumptive suburban forms requires an understanding of its spaces’ mythological denotation. Semiotics, the study of symbols, reveals that suburban form carries symbols reinforcing American ideas of privacy, individualism, status, security, ownership, and safety. This research proposes pragmatic suburban housing reform by respecting the suburban myth through semiotic study. This thesis’s semiotic methodology catalogs suburban symbols, finding they focus on the private realm unlike urban texts which prioritize community and mobility. Design development tests suburban semiotics with a revised housing model using autonomous and shared zones to balance private control with careful definition of shared access and relationship to the site.