From Southern Courier writer Deborah Erwin: "Zetland’s first group of new townhouses built by P&J Projects is finished. P&J Projects has already sold more than half of its Garland Row townhouses off the plan and will release the remaining 11 in the next few weeks. CB Richard Ellis agent Craig Moore said the row of tri-level houses were Torrens title properties. 'You’re not administered by a body corporate. You can have pets and you can make changes to your terrace because you’re not governed by strata or bylaws. There is no similar product in the area, the rest are all apartments and high-rises.'" Full article here. Architect: Popov Bass.
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The Black Swan (book, not movie) consequences for small, adaptable development
I just finished reading The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I'm late to the party and it took me a while to read (I'd rather be blogging), but I learned about a couple of things relevant to townhouses, including scalability and the following, pieced together from pages 314 to 368. "Mother Nature does not like anything too big. If I shot an elephant, I would hardly disturb the ecology. On the other hand, if you shot a large bank, I would shiver at the consequences and that if one falls, they all fall. Mother Nature does not limit the interactions between entities; it just limits the size of its units.
"Mother Nature initially created the mouth to eat, perhaps to breathe, perhaps for some other function linked to the existence of the tongue. Then new functions emerged that were most probably not part of the initial plan. Over the past three years I have become obsessed with the notion that, under epistemic limitations -- some opacity concerning the future -- progress (and survival) cannot take place without one of these types of redundancy.
"The organism with the largest number of secondary uses is the one that will gain the most from environmental randomness and epistemic opacity. So when you have a lot of functional redundancies, randomness helps on balance, but under one condition -- that you can benefit from the randomness more than you can be hurt by it (an argument I call more technically convexity to uncertainty).
"Yet most people do not realize that success consists mainly in avoiding losses, not in trying to derive profits. Indeed, I spent twelve years trying to explain that in many instances it was better -- and wiser -- to have no models than to have the mathematical acrobatics we had."
How should we plan our cities in light of these ideas? What would buildings look like if designed according to these principles?
Portland, Oregon Rowhouses Combine Street Frontage, Privacy, Living, Working, and Walking
From OregonLive.com writer Phil Favorite: "Guy Bryant has built his upscale rowhouse developments in the heart of several of Portland’s close-in neighborhoods, always trying to put just the right new homes on the right site. So before he broke ground for his newest project on Northeast Alberta Street, he made sure the plan called for homes that would embrace the walkable, urban feel of the Alberta Arts District.
"Brainstorming with his longtime architect Rod Merrick, Bryant found the inspiration for Alberta Row — four newly built rowhouses for sale that are within walking distance of numerous shops and restaurants and right on the main drag of the community’s popular monthly Last Thursday street fair. 'The neighborhood has so many fun shops and galleries and restaurants, I wanted to make sure we embraced that character but at the same time created homes with a sense of privacy.'
"Each of the homes at Alberta Row features a step-up front courtyard that connects the units to the action on the main drag. Privacy is provided by wood plank fencing and a stylish, metal gate that welcomes visitors with an artisan touch. The courtyards expand to become an indoor-outdoor living room through a roll-top doorway that opens to a clever flex space that can serve as an artist studio, gallery, workshop, home office or den." Full article with images here. (Photo credit: John M. Vincent.)
Rowhouse Addition in Washington Combines Glass, Steel, Stucco, Contrast and Context
From Arch Daily writer Kelly Minner: "Barcode House designed by David Jameson Architect explores juxtapositions between the heavy and light and the old and the new. The work is formed by positioning the project’s diverse pressures into a unique situational aesthetic. Brittle masonry walls of the existing Washington, DC row house governed that the addition be engineered as a freestanding structure. Site constraints dictated a vertically oriented spatial solution. The client’s desire for transparent living space generated the opportunity to create an integrated solution for lateral force requirements. Structural steel rods within a glass window wall are aligned with datum lines of the neighboring building elevations. A stucco circulation tower anchors the living space to the existing row house." Full post with image gallery here. (Photo credit: Paul Warchol.)
Townhouse in Houston Combines Executive Housing, Vertical Living, Modern Design
From Culture Map Houston writer Shelby Hodge: "It takes more than a little bold vision to launch a three-lot, ultra-contemporary project. Credit developers Gary Hammett and David La Duke and architect Mark Atkins of masa STUDIO Architects with the stunning addition to this sleepy block in Montrose. Although the main entrance is on the second level, we begin our tour on the ground floor that is dedicated entirely to the master suite.
"The floating stairway (you can see all the way to the roof) leads to the main living area on the second floor. You immediately feel the vastness of space with the open plan that was just made for heavy-duty entertaining. The kitchen holds center court on this floor and is indeed a visual focal point. The third floor houses two bedrooms with full baths, a media room and full-sized laundry room. Again, ample windows provide a flow of light throughout lending a feeling of airiness that complements the open flow. You can tour the townhouse yourself via this video tour conducted by the architect." Full article with image gallery here. (Photo credit: Mike Willcox.)
Tokyo Small, Attached House Uses Courtyard, Skylights, and Tree to Add Sense of Space
From Dwell writer Cathelijne Nuijsink: "It’s not easy to transform a 15-foot-wide building site — wedged between houses in every direction — into a home that feels more spacious than its location allows. Mamm-design’s solution was to dedicate two-thirds of this tiny 653-square-foot house in Tokyo to a 20-foot-high garden room to bring a sense of the outdoors in.
"To achieve a level of comfort on a plot wedged between virtually identical prefab houses, the architects brought in a sense of the outdoors with this courtyard that's finished with a grey brick floor and a live Evergreen Ash tree. The central terrace works as a buffer between the study, atelier and bedroom and bathroom located on both sides of the central space. The kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and workspace are all connected to the central space, transforming the covered veranda into a surrealistic theatrical setting for day-to-day life.
"The interior is illuminated by skylights that allow natural light to flood almost every space inside. 'We tried to achieve a space in which inside and outside co-exist together,' architect Akira Mada says. 'As we walk around the house, at times we feel the space is totally outside while at other moments it is an interior.'" Full article with photo gallery here.
Side-Yard House in Charleston, South Caolina Renovated for Live/Work in Downtown
From Dwell writer Kelsey Keith: "Designers Helen Rice and Josh Nissenboim sought a historic house with a larger-than-average footprint so they could incorporate the operations of their design company, Fuzzco, into their living space. Also important, for reasons both practical and personal, was a good yard — in a shaky real estate market, acreage is a tangible asset, and both Rice and Nissenboim have a love for outdoor space and growing edible plants.
"Their residence is considered a classic Charleston single, defined as a one-room-wide structure that hugs one side of a lot with a two-story piazza along the side and a front door that leads onto the open porch. Rice and Nissenboim stayed within the basic vocabulary of the traditional Charleston single (no fractal surfaces or cantilever additions here). Though the house was nothing remarkable in the surrounding landscape of stately peninsula homes, it had solid bones for a decidedly breathable, low-key, and modern living space — even if its windows hadn’t changed since the 19th century.
"The most noticeable alteration is in the back rooms, which were tacked onto the house at the turn of the century. There, they removed two walls to carve out an open living space and removed outdated wooden wall paneling to reveal an original tongue-and-groove wall. Many of the same friends contributed to the house’s transformation. In creating relationships with their peers through design collaboration, and rehabilitating existing but struggling property in the middle of downtown, Rice and Nissenboim are staking their claim on the creative future of South Carolina’s most progressive hamlet." Full article with photo gallery here. (Image credit: Daniel Shea.)
Narrow, Attached House Renovation in Sydney, Australia Inspired by Japanese Design
From Dwell writer Mimi Zeiger: "Architects John Wilkin and Susanne Pini spent five years transforming their long and narrow 'semi' — Australian parlance for a single building split in two by a party wall — into a 1,200-square-foot Japanese-inspired retreat. The designers studied Japanese architecture while at university, and Pini once worked for a company that imported antique Japanese furniture, so the pair not only felt drawn to Eastern aesthetics (particularly Japanese design’s 'compactness and lightness,' says Pini) but also to a slow, cumulative approach to renovation and woodworking.
"Crafted out of hoop pine plywood, the cabinetry makes use of every inch of the limited space. In Tom’s room, a new bay window faces onto the road. It doubles as a guest bed and a window seat with hidden storage space inside. The architects deliberately chose natural materials like wood and leather for their warm tones and texture, in spite of the fact that in wet, high-traffic areas the surfaces would quickly wear and darken. For Pini, weathering is a welcome part of the home’s design, a chance for the passing of time to be expressed. It’s a case study in wabi-sabi, the Japanese aesthetic precept in which beauty is beheld in the incomplete and unrefined." Full article with photo gallery here.
Fifteen Philadelphia Rownhouse Renovations & Decorations That Make Small Spaces Inspiring
From Apartment Therapy writer Bethany Seawright, text and images about 15 exemplary rowhouse renovations and decorations: "According to the Philadelphia Rowhouse Manual, 'the Philadelphia rowhouse, most simply, is a one to four-story house occupying a narrow street frontage and attached to adjacent houses on both sides.' And while rowhouses can be found in many cities across the country, the manual, put out by the Philadelphia City Planning Commission, also states that the rowhouse outnumbers all other housing types in the city of Philadelphia…
"The many of us who live in rowhouses have learned to embrace all of the charm, imperfections and challenges that come with narrow, attached, urban living. We love our row homes! And whether we live in Society Hill, Queen Village, Old City, Kensington, Washington Square, South Philly, North Philly, West Philly or Rittenhouse Square, we are always looking for inspiration on how to renovate, rejuvenate and restore the economically-built, historical gems we call home…" Full article with image gallery and links here.
Key to Disaster Recovery Is Neighborhood Connections, Like in Baltimore Rowhouses
From Baltimore Sun writer Jean Marbella: "Have you ever noticed how people just seem to know your business around here? Maybe it's bred into the culture, part of our rowhouse roots or that whole smallest-big-city thing, but no man is an island in Baltimore. "Engaged neighbors, Daniel P. Aldrich tells me, are key to surviving and recovering from natural disasters. He knows that from his academic research — the political scientist has found that the most important factor in surviving and recovering from disasters like the tsunami in Japan and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans was having strong social connections within your community.
"Perhaps it was inevitable that Aldrich moved to the area in a week that brought both an earthquake and now a hurricane. On leave from Purdue University, where he is an associate professor of political science, he moved to Silver Spring to start a fellowship next month at USAID, the foreign assistance agency, in Washington.
"Aldrich has found that often, people who survive disasters have been rescued by their neighbors rather than first responders, given that emergency personnel simply can't get to everyone, or get blocked by downed trees or flooded streets. He calls this neighborhood-level intelligence 'social capital,' but it sounds a lot like good old-fashioned gossip, over-the-fence chatter." Full article here.
Small Toronto Rowhouse Yards Challenge Owners and Architects Designing Outdoor Rooms
From the Globe & Mail writer Carolyn Ireland, "Near Queen Street West and Spadina Avenue, a few doors away from the hubbub of Toronto’s Chinatown, Paul Johnston has created a tiny, shady refuge. After he bought a Victorian-era row house on Sullivan Street, he put in a new kitchen and replaced the rear façade with a wall of south-facing glazing. That left him staring at a cramped back garden full of off-kilter patio stones.
"Mr. Johnston is quick to admit that he didn’t give Ron Holbrook a lot to work with when he asked the landscape architect to design an outdoor room in the scant 11 feet between the rear of the kitchen and the front wall of the garage. Side to side, the lot is 15 feet. 'This is without question the smallest garden I’ve ever designed,' says Mr. Holbrook, who adds that the tighter the space, the greater the challenge.
"Urban spaces may be compact, but most homeowners still want greenery, seating, lighting and a place to put the barbeque. Fitting all those components into a 'room' puts the skills of a landscape architect to their best use, he believes. Mr. Johnston, a real estate agent, is encountering more buyers who want small, urban spaces that don’t fit the traditional notion of a garden or backyard. A few blocks away on Lippincott Street, Cecconi Simone Inc. designed outdoor rooms for each of the units in their Lippincott Living mews houses." Full article with image gallery here.
Three Washington, DC Rowhouse Owners Connect Small Back Yards for Larger Shared Garden
From Washington Post writer Adrian Higgins: "When your small urban yard is about as wide as an SUV is long, crafting a garden space becomes an exercise in ingenuity. Some people borrow the distant view; others use visual gimmicks such as mirrored walls or trompe l’oeil murals. For neighbors Steve McMaster and Bill Eppard Jr. and their partners, the solution became all about sharing.
"When Eppard and Fiorentino came to the neighborhood in 1986, the late Victorian rowhouses were affordable for two guys on a budget. They connected their two small yards to form one and later added the adjoining back yard of McMaster’s brother and his wife. The two gates together form one of three key features that tie the yards together. The second element is the seamless network of paths. The third element is the specimen plants that blur the property lines.
"Common landscapes are not uncommon in condos and apartments across the Washington area, but it is much harder to find individual homeowners willing to fudge their lot lines. Shared spaces need neighbors who get along, stay put and aren’t territorial. Eppard and McMaster like that they can go between their houses without using the street. The neighbors feel at ease in one another’s landscape and, moreover, revel in the psychological linkage of the spaces." Full article with slideshow here.
Free Video Series from Columbia University on NYC Tenements and Apartment Buildings
As part of Townhouse Center's "Mid-Rise Madness" series, a note that Columbia University has made available on the internet for free an entire video series on New York City's tenements and evolution to larger mid-rise apartment buildings. The lecture is delivered by Prof. Andrew S. Dolkart, and is available in video segments (each just a few minutes) or transcript format, or as one paper. Topics include: Dumbbell Tenements, Model Tenements, East River Houses, Union Housing, Emulating the Suburbs, Six-Story Buildings, Using Traditional Forms, and Downzoning. Some latter segments include discussion of apartment towers that are antithetical to this blog, but don't let that dissuade you from watching the entire series, which moves quickly and is very informative.
San Francisco Rowhouse Designed Without Architect in 1911 Renovated With One in 2011
From This Old House magazine writer Deborah Baldwin: "Seeing a house through a remodel is dirty work, but somebody's got to do it. And at the San Francisco home of Jenna Miller Pelaez and her husband, Steve, that would be Jenna. All went well until the work dried up, at which point Jenna homed in on this needy rowhouse across the street, its rooms small, dark, and dated.
"So maybe the double-hungs no longer went up and down — the house had other virtues, including a rich past. It was built in 1911 by a developer named Fernando Nelson, who, like Jenna, was self-trained, focused, and broad in his tastes. Before retiring to a mansion nearby, he put up thousands of working-class homes, using his magpie's eye for other builders' details rather than hiring an architect.
"It has a front-facing gable, tall banks of windows, strong horizontal trim, and entry stairs rising sideways to a glassed-in front porch atop a street-facing garage. On the second floor, the baths sat back-to-back, with nary a WC on the first or third floors. Yet, 'even with all the dark woodwork I could tell the house had lots of natural light,' says Jenna." Full article with slideshow here. (Photo credit: James Carrière.)
Update on the Legacy of Art Cowie: Continuing Efforts to Legalize Townhouses in Vancouver
From Vancouver Sun writer Bob Ransford: "Freehold attached row houses are a common form of housing both new and old almost everywhere except Vancouver. The freehold form of ownership is often viewed as a superior, as the homeowner feels he or she truly owns a piece of real estate, rather than owning a right to a limited area and sharing common property, like most condominium developments.
"This form of housing uses land more efficiently than probably any other form of housing that has direct access from the street. But these townhouses don't exist in Vancouver. That's because B.C.'s Land Title Act is missing a crucial provision that allows adjoining neighbours to register an agreement on the property's title that governs how they jointly deal with the common wall they share.
"B.C.'s land title laws are standing in the way of Vancouver welcoming a form of housing that could add to diversity in the city and help to improve housing affordability. We've seen row houses in Vancouver, but with the exception of one experimental project, all are owned communally as condominium homes under B.C.'s Strata Property Act, rather than outright in a freehold form under the Land Title Act, like most detached housing.
"The late Art Cowie, who was a Vancouver MLA, city councillor, Park Board commissioner and professional planner, worked tirelessly before his death more than a year and a half ago to make freehold row townhouses a reality in Vancouver." Full article here. (Photo credit: Michael Geller.)
Not a Shophouse, Not a Lilong, But a "Nong Tang": Shanghai Small Buildings Reused as Hotel
From Architectural Record writer Clifford Pearson: "Fast-disappearing, Shanghai’s nong tang (lane houses) combine European construction with Chinese notions of tightly packed residential life. From the street, these early-20th-century buildings present gabled facades — respectable and a bit staid. But once you walk through the door to the lane running between the houses, you encounter a messy world of clothes hanging out to dry, shutters flung open, people gossiping, and kids running around. "Neri & Hu Design and Research Office (NHDRO) tried to capture the spirit of a nong tang in its design of the Waterhouse at South Bund, a trio of industrial buildings from the early 1930s converted into a 19-room boutique hotel. Blending old and new, Western and local, the firm turned a nong tang on end. So instead of a series of public-blurring-into-private spaces that unfolds as you walk down an alley, the hotel reveals itself through a number of vertical cuts offering views down and up from guest rooms into public spaces (and vice versa).
"NHDRO exposed other things, too. Instead of refinishing the building’s aging facades and interior surfaces, the firm flaunted decay as a prominent theme. 'We wanted to demonstrate a new way of preserving things,' explains Neri. 'You don’t have to clean it all up.' So they kept the ghosted outlines of floor slabs removed to create the tall lobby space and didn’t touch a small cluster of foam-green tiles mounted in the 1950s and still clinging to one wall of the lobby." Full article with image gallery here. (Photo credit: Derryck Menere.)
Brooklyn Townhouse Renovated the Way Cities Should Be Redeveloped: with Small, Slow Steps
From Dwell magazine: "Architect Jeff Sherman, of Delson or Sherman Architects, has more guts and gall than your average home renovator. In 2000, strapped by a 'very finite budget,' he bought a wrecked row house in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, that had been used as an illegal breeding kennel. Over the next ten years, working as his own general contractor and builder, he transformed the scariest building on his block into a high-design home, all for about $100 per square foot.
"'The day after closing, the contractor started demolition. When he was finished, I had an insulated shell with utilities and big structural cuts and an opening for a skylight. The entire middle of the house was opened up to bring light in and counteract the darkness typical of row houses.'
"'After I decided to cut that giant hole in the center, the room configuration quickly laid itself out. The kitchen went in the back, the living room in the front, and the two-story space became the dining room. Upstairs, there’s a bedroom in the front, a bedroom in the back, and a catwalk connecting the two. I also wanted to separate the living room from the foyer, so I built a volume that contains storage space. I covered it in inexpensive copper flashing so it would read as a single object.'
"'Throughout the renovation, I used a lot of local artisans. Albert, from around the corner, did the striped stained glass on the back door, and a local storefront company mounted the glass. My next-door neighbor Ullah is a mason, and he built my stoop. I’m pretty antisocial by nature, so bringing in neighboring craftspeople was an attempt to help create a community for myself.'" Full article with image gallery here.
Update: Excellent video here.
Townhouses in Manila, Philippines Blend Modernism, Humanism, and Sustainability
From the Manila Bulletin: "Five friends established a company they named Modern Dwellings. Architect Joanna Santana and her partners believe that a resident can live a high quality life even within a limited space. 'We prefer to design communities and not just individual residences.' Their latest, a nine-unit townhouse compound with a pool and playground in Don Antonio, Quezon City, is now in the final stages of construction.
"The compound was designed to showcase functionality and green architecture. Natural lighting and ventilation were achieved by using big windows and an air well. Modular construction was also utilized. Standard sizes of materials such as tiles, concrete hollow blocks, and boards were considered in doing the plans to minimize waste.
"Joanna shares the following ideas that can enhance the character of a modern house.
- The layout should encourage interaction among family members. Says Joanna, 'Because of the open plan, the furniture could be laid out on the intimate level or group level.'
- Natural lighting and ventilation. Although the area of each townhouse unit is not that large, the feeling of spaciousness helps in creating a homey environment.
- Keep in mind that the modern home is a part of a bigger community. Although the window openings are quite large, they are positioned in such a way so as to minimize direct visual contact. There are common areas and open spaces that foster community."
Full article here.
Baltimore Rowhouse Adaptability Makes Room for Three Generations of Women in Style
From the Baltimore Sun: "The large rowhouse in Federal Hill that belongs to the Johnson family shelters multiple generations. 'We are three generations of women living in this home that we decided to make 21st century,' laughed Gilda Johnson.
"Little more than a year later, this former two-story rowhouse rises to three stories, with a mansard-style roof, dormered windows, iron fencing around the rooftop deck — one of four decks — and an elevator to climb from the finished basement to the very top of the house.
"With interior dimensions of 18 feet wide by 80 feet long and copious interior natural light, the first floor is laid out with a breathtaking, center circular staircase which divides the living area in the front from the open dining room, kitchen and breakfast nook in the rear.
"The staircase's iron spindles and oak railing lead all the way to the roof top deck — if one chooses to walk. Each of the bedrooms, two on the second floor and two on the third floor, has its own bathroom while the back rooms on each level open to private decks."
"'It was hard for me to adjust, I preferred my old life living by myself,' said Carlyn Johnson. 'But now I realize that everything Gilda thought of for this house was the correct thing to keep me out of a nursing home. Generationally, it's very well thought out.'" Full article here. (Photo credit: Jed Kirschbaum.)
More Free, Open-Source Small Urban Building Financial Models and Conceptual Drawings
You may have missed in the recent post about Burnside Rocket that its developer puts financial models and conceptual drawings for all his projects online. Great minds think alike: small urban building expert John Anderson is also "open-sourcing" a project, and emailed the model and drawings.
"This live/work 4-plex is intended to help others explore the development of small rental buildings, given the constraints of today's financing. For now, we are looking to test the prototype and its underlying economics. In the pro forma, you can try out different costs, rents, down payment amounts, operating costs, etc. and see how the changes affect the returns and the debt coverage ratio. I am very interested in feedback and critique.
"The building's footprint is modest. The slab-on-grade construction and simple form reduce construction cost. The accessible unit on the ground floor covers most requirements for accessibility, so no elevator is needed. The exit path is short enough that there is no requirement for a second means of egress from the second floor, so just one stairway under the ICC. This is a small deal that can be done with an investor partner and a standard 20%-down, FHA-insured mortgage.
"I'm hoping others will pick it up, adapt the design to their local sites and circumstances, and get it built. The tool kit for delivering small increments of development needs to be expanded and we figure this is a good starting point." Send feedback to janderson at andersonkim.com or write in the comments.