The atrium concept of Diagram 1 is as old as Rome. It is a
departure from Rome because pedestrian access is separated from the plan’s
vehicular access to create a social side and service side for the dwelling. The
size of the dwelling unit is a variable issue.
The strategy depends on the concentrated use of core open
space, the elimination of border setback areas, and the separation of
conflicting pedestrian and vehicular movement. The arrangement returns to an
ancient atrium pattern but attempts to recognize the vast changes in movement
conflict and spatial expectations that have taken place. The plan, however, is
not the message nor is it the size of the dwelling unit. The message is the relationship
of spaces involved, and the potential reduction of lot area per dwelling unit
represented. When a “small home” is involved, the reduction could be
significant but it is not an infill suggestion.
If you have been associated with design, you know that there
are many answers to the same question, which in this case is affordable lot and
housing area.
The diagram is not presented as an architectural solution. Lot
area quantities and relationships are the message. These quantities include open
space, building height, footprint area, parking area, miscellaneous pavement
area, and the role of pedestrian and vehicular movement. They all consume
irreplaceable land and they all contribute to the cost of housing. Careful
consideration and correlation are needed now that construction cost and land
consumption are becoming more visible issues-- as well as correlation with
existing housing patterns and adjacency expectations. Based on this:
1)
What are the site plan quantities and
relationships that combine to produce a desirable single-family residential
quality of life on the least land?
2)
What is a desirable pedestrian relationship with
the movement systems that serve the dwelling unit?
HISTORY
Lot size has puzzled me ever since I lived on a 30 x
102-foot lot with a 10-foot front yard setback, a detached garage with driveway
to the street that barely scraped by the house, and an alley to the rear that
was not wide enough to accommodate a turning radius into a garage. It was one
of the larger lots on the street. Other lots were narrower and could not provide
driveways, nor could the narrow alley serve their outbuildings with adequate
turning radii. I assume horses had no problem in the past. The increase in cars
forced houses to use curb-parking on both sides of a two-way street. It made the
street a one-way movement system that depended on courtesy and deference to
function. The result was frustration, anxiety, and a risk to children. We were
warned at home and at school that darting between parked cars could result in
injury or death. They expected us to take this seriously.
When we moved to a 50 x 120-foot lot with a 25-foot front
yard setback I subconsciously felt relieved but did not realize it may have
been from lower density. I later learned that a more affluent suburb had banned
50-foot-wide lots. I have always assumed that this occurred because the lot
width did not accommodate attached garages, and that detached garages
constrained the rear yard area.
Mandatory lot widths increased to 60, 75, 90 feet and above in
this affluent suburb in response to the zone involved. Attached garages with driveways
to the street became the norm and curb parking was only needed for overflow visitor
demand. Setback areas increased, even though increased yard areas were rarely
used and contributed more to the appearance of affluence than to functional
need. The standard front yard depth was 40 feet. Side yards also increased but
lot depth remained at 120 feet. Curb appeal increased and rear yards benefited
from the removal of detached garages, but suffered from the increased front
yard depth.
In my opinion, the historic front yard setback concept
introduced visual consistency to unify disparate building styles and plans. The
side yard setback attempted to reduce the depressing compression of 1 to 3-foot
side yard “slots” often found among 19th and early 20th
century buildings. The rear yard setback attempted to offer a limited degree of
single-family relief from the prior intensity of multi-family apartments and
tenements. The concept of a “lot” attempted to offer land ownership to more
than a privileged few.
YARDS
The location of setback areas on lots is worth considering, since
our current front, side, and rear yard concepts add considerable cost to a
housing objective that is now being asked to be affordable, but “affordable” is
relative, setbacks improve the consistency of piecemeal appearance, and infill
solutions have their own potential problems.
SITE PLANS
Every site plan is a cell in a shelter organism. It is
served by arteries of movement, open space, and life support that combine to
form a Built Domain that is attempting to consume its source of life, the
Natural Domain. (I have previously admitted that open space arteries are more
of a dream than reality.) The size of each residential cell and its internal
quantity relationships, including the home “footprint”, determines the land
area consumed and its relationship to its neighbors.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Affordable housing will simply be another residential cell
in the Built Domain. Its characteristics as an infill solution should be
carefully considered to ensure that it does not become malignant. It may be
that new neighborhoods and/or zones are required. If new land is taken for the
purpose, the risk of continuing sprawl for low density, “affordable”, housing
will remain. There are no easy answers in my opinion. This may be why many
countries use far more multi-family housing and why the pedestrian orientation
of their ancient streets is admired.
URBAN DESIGN
The problem deserves urban design attention on a much larger
scale, but this represents a dramatic departure from the piecemeal answers
provided by our present approach to single-family residential housing and the
sprawl it has produced.
The piecemeal approach was a greater problem in the past. It
produced adjacency conflicts that led to public health, safety, and welfare
concerns. Master plans and zoning districts were established in response to
this piecemeal freedom. The concept is needed in my opinion, but its strict
definition of “adjacency” is undergoing refinement, and its ability to
mathematically evaluate economic stability at the cellular or census block
level of neighborhoods and districts is relatively nonexistent. This is why I
have used the term “malignant”. It will remain a matter of opinion until urban
design can improve its mathematical definitions.
Walter M. Hosack, December 2025
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