The Diversity of the Cookie Cutter Home

 For the most part, I have grown up in suburbia my whole life. Through this, I was able to make friends in my neighborhood and saw how these homes that were similar, were also vastly different when it came to how the residents lived in the home.

My best friend and I grew up around the corner from each other. We had the same layout in our homes, but her home looked completely different than mine. Her family was from Mexico and Guatemala and her house resembled that. I compared the orange colored tile throughout the house and the colorful paintings and photos scattered on the walls to my brown carpeted, mildly decorated home. It was the same floorplan, but her family made it a home differently than how mine did.

In the reading, “Little Boxes”, by Margaret Crawford, she talks about the start of the development of track homes near Palo Alto. Due to the migration of people coming from other countries, the demand for houses grew quick and the response was through tract homes. While many people have their critiques about track homes, she comes at this from a different perspective. Because of the technology of tract homes (aka its lightweight framing), these homes can be manipulated and redesigned for the user’s lifestyle. For instance, many Filipinos migrated to the US during this time and many of them saw their garage as a blank canvas. This allowed for a variety of uses to happen in this space, all unique to the residents.

Suburbia is filled with cookie cutter homes, but they also have the opportunity to be transformed into an adaptable space for those occupying it.