Archinect's Lexicon: "One-story peanut butter"

2014-12-19T19:07:00-05:00

one-story peanut butter, noun: in reference to urban sprawl, how it spreads and oozes.

The term comes courtesy of Archinector and Archinect Sessions co-host, Donna Sink, who recalls W. Kirby Lockard (1930-2007), Professor of Architecture at University of Arizona, using it to describe sprawl during an urban design studio in 1988:

"The only other recollection I have is that he said it as if "...this is the way we build now". That was in the mid-80s, when sprawl really ballooned, I think. The movie Poltergeist was an indictment of it, certainly. The studio class was looking at different ways to build in the desert, in an environmentally friendly and climate-appropriate way - this was before terms like green and eco and sustainable were popular - so we studied historic Native American settlements and Italian hill towns and talked about transit vs. car."

"He spoke about how, in Tucson, which is a valley, "suburban sprawl was one story going mountain to mountain, spread out like peanut butte...

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Archinect's Lexicon: "One-story peanut butter"