Posted March 30, 201114 yr Cozy pocket neighborhoods have sprawl on the move By Haya El Nasser, USA When Brian and Colleen Ducey's two adult children moved out, their large empty home on a quiet dead-end street in Seattle suddenly lost its homey feel. "We had a big, 2,500-square-foot home that we weren't using," says Brian, 58. "We had a very large yard. We felt tied to it every weekend trying to make it look halfway decent. ... It was a great house, but too big." They looked for something smaller, but their only options were condominiums — until they saw an ad for an unusual new development just across city limits in Shoreline, Wash.: Eight cottages around a central garden. The first view from the access drive was the gable of a commons building and colorful rooftops jutting up behind it. Read more at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-03-30-pocket30_ST_N.htm Link to architect's web page: http://rosschapin.com/Projects/PocketNeighborhoods/PocketNeighborhoodsOpener.html
March 30, 201114 yr Interesting. I wonder if there's a way to convert bungalow burbs like Garfield Heights into this arrangement.
March 30, 201114 yr It'd be interersting to try this as a way of developing in-fill housing. When you think about it, it could be applied to both urban and suburban areas.
April 26, 201114 yr Bit of a necrobump here, but I'm starting to notice the media is getting pretty comfortable with just flat-out saying "sprawl", whereas 5-10 years ago use of the word would have been considered "loaded" terminology.
November 5, 20231 yr Can't find a better place to discuss current thinking in urban architecture. Saturday's FT had a long discussion of current plans for meeting a 4 million housing shortage in the UK. The current favorite is "gentle density", which the author says is a euphemism invented by the Brookings Inst. for medium density, a term which fell into disfavor. Gentle density favors 3- to 7-story buildings randomly mixed along a street. Some proponents says adding the occasional tower is ok; others say no to the tower outside of center city or surburban focus-locations. A common objection is the ubiquity of Georgian architecture (the current King's favorite); proponents say it's soothing and tasteful while reasonably cheap to use. (The American equivalent is Federal-style.) Lots of pros and cons. Locally, they are worried about Starmer, the most likely successor to Prime Minister Sunak; Stramer is fond of pebble-dashed, semi-detached suburban houses. https://www.ft.com/content/2afaca2c-62c7-4482-9177-2187c695cf22 Remember: It's the Year of the Snake
November 6, 20231 yr On 11/5/2023 at 9:33 AM, Dougal said: Can't find a better place to discuss current thinking in urban architecture. Saturday's FT had a long discussion of current plans for meeting a 4 million housing shortage in the UK. The current favorite is "gentle density", which the author says is a euphemism invented by the Brookings Inst. for medium density, a term which fell into disfavor. Gentle density favors 3- to 7-story buildings randomly mixed along a street. Some proponents says adding the occasional tower is ok; others say no to the tower outside of center city or surburban focus-locations. A common objection is the ubiquity of Georgian architecture (the current King's favorite); proponents say it's soothing and tasteful while reasonably cheap to use. (The American equivalent is Federal-style.) Lots of pros and cons. Locally, they are worried about Starmer, the most likely successor to Prime Minister Sunak; Stramer is fond of pebble-dashed, semi-detached suburban houses. https://www.ft.com/content/2afaca2c-62c7-4482-9177-2187c695cf22 Perhaps OT for this thread, but Labor's about to fracture over Gaza. IMO the inevitable switch has been pushed back 2-5 years.
November 12, 20231 yr the anti-la story of the ambitous city that never happened that was planned as a counterweight to willy nilly los angeles: California's third largest city is a mostly empty, forgotten dream By Timothy Karoff Nov 12, 2023 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles in the high desert of California’s Antelope Valleylies the blueprint of a city. But the blueprint isn’t drawn on paper — it’s etched into the sand. … In 2023, as tech billionaires prepare to build a utopian city in Solano County, California City remains a reminder of just how wide the gulf between design and execution can be. more: https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/california-city-planned-community-explained-18476273.php In this aerial picture taken on Sept. 25, 2021, a vast network of roads cut through the Mojave Desert, intended for a massive suburb that was never built, in California City, Calif.ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images The 20-acre lake in Central Park, the community’s recreational complex, in California City, Calif., 1970. Bill Johnson/Denver Post/Getty Images
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