The Brilliance!

The new Dwell came in my mail today and every time a new Dwell comes, I know I’m in for a load of inspiration, motivation, and some new artist or architect to admire. This time around, what I’m loving is the article ‘The Suburbs Strike Back’ by Jane Szita. The headline reads “Swedish prefab specialists Smedshammar + Holmberg are on a mission to rescue their compatriots from boring suburbs - and their deep-seated suspicion of architects.” Having grown up in the suburbs with my parents, moving out of their house to an apartment in another suburb, and now being married and recently having moved to yet another suburb, I can personally vouch for the completely boring approach to the look, feel, and architecture of suburban design. I understand the practicality of what most suburbs offer, but as a creative person there is nothing appealing to me about living in a place that is identical my next door neighbor, their next door neighbor, and everyone else in the neighborhood. So this article - actually, the entire new issue of Dwell - really grabbed me because I can relate to this whole issue. Carl-Johan Smedshammar and Anders Holmberg are attempting to tackle the issue in Sweden (granted, everything in Sweden is probably a million times more well designed to begin with than the Illinois suburbs that I’m used to…but anyways…) and it seems as though the residents are taking the bait. One of their innovations in their first development - Silverdal Terrace I - was to alter the color and angles on each side of the house, thus creating a façade that was unique depending on where you saw the house from. It’s kind of difficult to explain, but go to their site, linked below, click ‘storre projekt’, then ‘silverdal I’ for pictures. I just really love the idea of more sustainable, modern, clean looks in suburban areas. Bring a little city flavor into the cookie-cutter ‘burbs. I’d love to see this kind of thing sweep through the states in the future…making the suburbs cool and updated, but for some reason I just don’t think it will happen, at least not in a widespread manner. Ah well. Maybe time to move to Sweden.