Amelia Smith

This thesis proposes an interrogation of the endurance of the quarter acre dream as a dominant (sub)urban mythology.  The critical discourses surrounding; the ontology of dwelling, habitus, and myth, serve to frame the architectural analysis of modern Australian vernaculars within this thesis, and their degradation into cul-de-sacs of non-place.

The premise of this thesis is that our current patterns of suburban development are outdated, unsustainable and problematic. The creation of socio-cultural expectations elide the role that ideology and power have in the formation of space/place, rendering architecture a natural, neutral "framework of everyday life" (Dovey, 2014).

The description of myth in Barthes’ Mythologies (1966) provides the theoretical framework for the development of this design thesis, the myth as a form of injunction which compels its audience to wrongly associate the form of the myth with an essence, expectation, dream, or object of desires, guides my attempt to both disrupt current suburban dreams and generate alternative future dreams.

The design response of this thesis is broken into two parts; Part 1 aims at disrupting the domination of the detached suburban block as the natural architecture of the suburban dream through a close analytical reading of specific myth-objects. Part 2 explores alternative dreamscapes, possible futures and built visions that aim to disrupt the reification of suburban housing.  The term dreamscape is very important to the progression of this project, it is within these imaginary visual fields that the myth-objects can be distorted and re-cast, an architectural reframing of suburban housing.

Amelia Smith at studio
View panels in at.studio
Amelia Smith issuu
View booklet (on issuu)