Artist Ross Racine creates fictional suburbs. He describes his work–”drawn freehand directly on the computer and printed with an inkjet printer”–as a “a comment on the fears as well as the dreams expressed in suburban culture.” What’s eerie is that the images often seem entirely realistic, capturing that odd mix of uninspired marketing whimsy and impracticality that characterizes so many suburban developments. [SButtonZ button="digg"]
For example, there’s cloud-shaped Walnut Village–a community that’s both absurd and believable. One has the sense that if we haven’t built a place like that yet, we will very soon.
Below are nine more prosaicly-named communities that exist only in Racine’s imagination.
Aspen Grove and Sunrise Park:
Sunshine Acres:
Highland Farms:
Dewdrop Village:
New Foxtown and Westhaven Villas:
Beachview Bluffs:
Mapleglen (version 2):
Chestnut Gap:
Greenfield Lakes:
Lots more at Racine’s site.
Tags: SHOW AND TELL
I especially like Chestnut Gap (the second last one), only because it’s so scarily plausible. A little neighbourhood built around a big, ugly shopping mall, with nothing else around it. I’m sure any retail establishment would love to have such a captive audience.
This is why artists should not be urban planners.
Pretty, but I’d hate to live there. (Any of those theres.)
Where is the beach and bluff in Beachview Bluffs? Actually, it looks very similar to Sao Paulo in real life.
I don’t think you’re meant to want to live there. That’s the point.
New Foxtown looks so realistic, it’s depressing.
Has anyone else notice that Mapleglen looks like an ice cream sundae, complete with a cherry on top?
Yep. And what I noticed second was that there’s no way to get to it.
@Catbus,
Do you remember that movie ‘Pleasentville’ with Spiderman in it? There was a scene where the girl was in a classroom learning the Geography of Pleasentville. Every road looped back to another road in the city.
Anyway, your comment kinda reminded me about that. That’s all.
The last photo (“Greenfield Lakes:”) is what pedestrians feel like trying to walk out of cul-de-sac subdivision, Roads that circle around and around, adding long distances to get out, when a straight road would have been preferred.
These suburbs might not be a fantasy for too much longer, especially if US town planners take a leaf out of Dubai’s book. Infrastructure in Dubai has long been admired and with projects such as Palm Islands, an artificial island complex, suburbs such as Rachine’s dont seem too ridiculous!
Fabulous images from a ripe talent! None of them, clearly, seem liveable to me (but then, neither do existing suburbs and they continue on). But some of them are eerily beautiful. The grey of the images adds to their sterility and artificiality.
Pretty sure I’ve been to New Foxtrot. It’s in Dallas, right?
I can see places like Mapleglen and Greenfield Lakes populated with hundreds of similars houses in light pinks, blues, and greens, just like the town in “Edward Scissorhands”
Suburbios de la imaginación…
Diseños ficticios de distribuciones de casas (suburbios), del artista Ross Racine totalmente surrealistas, pero plausibles a la vez, en el que demuestra la imaginación de este artista llevado a su exponente máximo en escala 1:1. Más información ww…
[...] Imagine your future home nestled in the center of a giant spiral – or perhaps as the cherry on top of a giant sundae. That’s just what Ross Racine envisions in his imagined drawings. [...]
Highland Farms =’s Deltona Florida I spent a hour one day going one block. Was built as a retirement town and they didn’t want any young whipper snappers racing thru town waking them up at Four, in the afternoon.
[...] [via infrastructurist] [...]
I love how Highland Farms mimics the swirling of water down a toilet bowl – a perfect description of many suburban communities.
Why is it that the last one reminds me of Dante’s Inferno?
[...] Days [The New York Times] Pilot program to limit traffic on Market Street [San Francisco Chronicle] Suburbs of the Imagination [The Infrastructurist] A Tale of Two Rebuilding Efforts at Ground Zero [Architectural [...]
I worked in a land development firm where the engineer who designed subdivision road layouts would write the names of his family with the streets.
I agree with Trevor. Chestnut Gap is eerily realistic
[...] planning art Our classmate Denis posted this to his facebook wall. I thought I’d share. Artist Ross Racine creates fictional suburbs. He [...]
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,,,,,,ahhhhh.
Thanks. I needed that.
I can see my house from here………
They look like corn mazes.
I love how the artist plans the “communities” from an aerial view. It exaggerates the actual planning process in suburban developments. I recently looked at a building and parking lot down the street from where I work only to see that it is designed from an aerial perspective. Here it is: From the ground you get a sense for the odd shape, but it never really makes sense. Of course, that can be said about much of suburbia, Columbia in particular.
Anyway, Ross Racine did a really great job. Cheers!