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.
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.
September 2nd, 2009 at 12:59 pm
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.
September 2nd, 2009 at 2:00 pm
This is why artists should not be urban planners.
September 2nd, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Pretty, but I’d hate to live there. (Any of those theres.)
September 2nd, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Where is the beach and bluff in Beachview Bluffs? Actually, it looks very similar to Sao Paulo in real life.
September 2nd, 2009 at 4:00 pm
I don’t think you’re meant to want to live there. That’s the point.
New Foxtown looks so realistic, it’s depressing.
September 2nd, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Has anyone else notice that Mapleglen looks like an ice cream sundae, complete with a cherry on top?
September 2nd, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Yep. And what I noticed second was that there’s no way to get to it.
September 2nd, 2009 at 6:41 pm
@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.
September 2nd, 2009 at 10:41 pm
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.
September 3rd, 2009 at 5:28 am
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!
September 3rd, 2009 at 8:28 am
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.
September 3rd, 2009 at 10:53 am
Pretty sure I’ve been to New Foxtrot. It’s in Dallas, right?
September 3rd, 2009 at 7:00 pm
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”
September 4th, 2009 at 5:11 am
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…
September 4th, 2009 at 10:58 am
[...] 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. [...]
September 7th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
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.
September 9th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
[...] [via infrastructurist] [...]
September 12th, 2009 at 10:27 am
I love how Highland Farms mimics the swirling of water down a toilet bowl - a perfect description of many suburban communities.
September 12th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Why is it that the last one reminds me of Dante’s Inferno?
September 12th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
[...] 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 [...]
September 12th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
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.
September 13th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
I agree with Trevor. Chestnut Gap is eerily realistic
September 14th, 2009 at 10:26 am
[...] planning art Our classmate Denis posted this to his facebook wall. I thought I’d share. Artist Ross Racine creates fictional suburbs. He [...]
September 14th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,,,,,,ahhhhh.
Thanks. I needed that.
September 14th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
I can see my house from here………
September 15th, 2009 at 8:27 am
They look like corn mazes.
September 25th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
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!