DOLLarHOUSE DREAMS
+ Exhibition (Architectural League of New York)
Doll(ar)house Dreams builds on the dissonant legacies of paper architecture—embracing both the pejorative and the visionary—by creating a series of cut-and-fold speculative structures inspired by the American landscape and its most ubiquitous landmark: Dollar General. As America’s largest dollar store empire, Dollar General Corporation ballooned from 8,300 brick-and-mortar stores in 2008 to over 19,100 in 2023. Few building types or cultural amenities have spread with such pace and zeal to reach every kind of consumer: haves and have-nots, urbanites and ruralites, us and them. For better or for worse, the dollar store and its small-box shell are everywhere and for everyone.
The project studies the dollar store phenomenon across the “flyover states” of the American Midwest. How might the perception, function, and influence of Dollar General change when it moves into some of the Midwest’s most mundane yet iconic architectures, such as the Foxconn dome, the US’s first mosque, a Tempur-Sealy mattress factory, New Deal public school buildings, grain silos, or the Grand Castle Apartments?
Doll(ar)house Dreams builds on the dissonant legacies of paper architecture—embracing both the pejorative and the visionary—by creating a series of cut-and-fold speculative structures inspired by the American landscape and its most ubiquitous landmark: Dollar General. As America’s largest dollar store empire, Dollar General Corporation ballooned from 8,300 brick-and-mortar stores in 2008 to over 19,100 in 2023. Few building types or cultural amenities have spread with such pace and zeal to reach every kind of consumer: haves and have-nots, urbanites and ruralites, us and them. For better or for worse, the dollar store and its small-box shell are everywhere and for everyone.
The project studies the dollar store phenomenon across the “flyover states” of the American Midwest. How might the perception, function, and influence of Dollar General change when it moves into some of the Midwest’s most mundane yet iconic architectures, such as the Foxconn dome, the US’s first mosque, a Tempur-Sealy mattress factory, New Deal public school buildings, grain silos, or the Grand Castle Apartments?
