The American Dream is grounded in home ownership, specifically the fantasy of owning a piece of land and building a house. The suburbs attest to this dream; they were built on abundance. The abundant land became not just a physical attachment, but a daydreaming shelter for imagination. The American land becomes the shelter for such a dream, and the dream shaped American life and impacted how American cities, towns and suburbs were developed. However, the current suburban development, a direct product of the American Dream is losing its quality and meaning in the problematic relationship between humans and resources. The dwelling units simply became objects of subdivision. Therefore the Suburbs that symbolized the American Dream now invade the American Landscape. Dwelling has simply lost its poetic aspect.
The project in this book explores American identity and strengthens the uniqueness of the American Dream through the idea of Poetic Urbanism in exurban situations, in order to provide an alternative vision for America’s suburbs and, in the process, reframe the American Dream. The new systems work together transforming the land into shelter for daydreaming within the American dream. The new idea of the American Suburb is making poetry, and a set of poems of sun and dreams become connections among the intimacy of land, the American Dream, and the human being. It’s a holistic approach that engages holistic landscape with a community that is self-sustained with energy flows as a whole ecological system through each part. It narrated a relationship between human, dwelling, and sun, spiritually and ritually, creating a poetic narrative to shelter the American Dream and the daily life of human dwelling. This is the Poetic Urbanism.