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The Shape of Consent: A Commentary on Emergent Forms within Suburbia

This thesis reveals relationships between the
neoliberal subject and the suburban subject
relative to the built environment. It argues that today's "architecture" is an integration of digital and analog worlds.
The thesis articulates that American society's
subjectivity is imposed by a consumer condition
that is tied to the iconography of suburban
landscape, such as the iconic house shape or a
recognizable brand icon. The advent of the
internet accelerated this condition by providing
additional conduits of capital-based icons to
emerge from and merge with the suburbs.
The work focuses on creating parallels between
the American suburban landscape, the suburban
home, digital infrastructure, and the emerging
structures which merge with the internet.
The thesis asserts that the suburban project
dominates the entirety of the landscape and is
the governing force building an incipient
landscape. The written part of the thesis
discusses how our modern identity, influenced by
both physical and digital worlds, has evolved
from suburban roots, while the visual commentary
uses architectural drawings to reveal four
modalities which frame our environment and shape
our lives and interactions. / Master of Science / This thesis looks at how architecture shapes our
lives and frames our interactions with the world
around us. It specifically focuses on how
suburban landscapes influence our identity and
behavior, emphasizing the typical suburban
elements like single-family housing, commercial
strip development, and global consumer goods that define this environment. The rise of the internet has intensified these suburban influences by connecting the suburban environment more deeply with the flow of money and data.
The research interrogates and uses images and
symbols from the suburban landscape to comment on their latent impact on our surroundings and how they now blend with digital technology. The thesis develops the connections between the physical suburban environment and developing digital infrastructures to articulate emergent structures in their combination.
The written part of the thesis discusses how our
modern identity, influenced by both physical and
digital worlds, has evolved from suburban roots.
A visual commentary uses architectural drawings
to reveal four modalities which frame our
environment and shapes our lives and
interactions.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/119232
Date03 June 2024
CreatorsShaver, Andrew Charles
ContributorsArchitecture, Bryon, Hilary, Pritchett, Christopher Brian, Edge, Kay F.
PublisherVirginia Tech
Source SetsVirginia Tech Theses and Dissertation
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
FormatETD, application/pdf
RightsIn Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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