Shaped Places of Carroll County New Hampshire expands upon an
award-winning speculative urban design project by the architecture and
design practice EXTENTS, led by McLain Clutter and Cyrus Peñarroyo.
The project investigates the complex reciprocity between who we are and
the shape of where we live; between identities and the built
environments that support them. In doing so, Shaped Places creates a
dialogue between seemingly disparate discourses spanning from critical
geography, to formalist art criticism, to the urbanization strategies of
the early twentieth century Russian avant garde. The role of the
rural-urban divide in affirming the divided political landscape in the
United States is a central theme in the work. The project culminates in
the design of three linear cities in Carroll County, New Hampshire. In
each speculative urban design proposal, rural and urban patterns of
development and divergent lifestyles are combined in urban design
proposals intended to produce a functional body politic from a sharply
divided population.