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I tweeted this yesterday (please forgive the grammar mistake).
What it shows is a bunch of narrow urban properties ranging, for the most part, from 5 to 7 storeys. Some of them are old buildings, and some are new. Regardless, the point I wanted to make was that this is a scale and rhythm of building that does wonders for cities. They’re dense, they have a compact footprint, and they promote urban vibrancy.
And yet, it's a building type that is far too difficult to develop in many cities. It is not always the case, but oftentimes the only way to underwrite these kinds of projects is to make them ultra high-end. That's a shame. So let’s talk about this a little more, starting with what makes this urban pattern so appealing.
One key thing that narrow lots and narrow retail frontages do is increase the number of destinations within walking distance. This promotes visual interest by always showing you something new.
At the same time, there are numerous economic benefits to this urban pattern. Smaller shops lower the barrier to entry for small businesses and allow greater adaptability. Change is able to happen faster, and if one or two businesses happen to turnover on a street, it’s not the end of the world.
One way I like to think of this is in terms of shops per step.
For example, let's assume that the average walking speed is 4 km/hour and that, as a starting point, fine-grained urbanism translates into storefronts that are around 6 m wide. This would mean the average person walking on a street would see a new shop (or retail frontage) about every 9 steps.
If we instead assume a retail frontage of something like 30 m (which is five times our original 6 m), then the average person would need approximately 43 steps for every shop. This is a meaningful difference that fundamentally changes the character of a street. If you’ve ever walked on a great main street, you know this, even if you’ve never explicitly acknowledged it.
But this is only the ground floor. The other benefit of these simple, straight-up infills is that they also bring homes and offices to the same compact footprint. Density is good. It is a prerequisite for urban vibrancy. And it can be achieved simply. Strip away the facade ornament from the building examples in my tweet, and these are extruded boxes with no stepbacks to speak of.
This used to be how many (or most) cities built fabric buildings at scale, but for many reasons, we forgot how. One of the reasons is that we’ve generally made building things more onerous, and that means developers need bigger and bigger projects to justify the costs.
But it's clear our desire to experience human-scaled environments hasn’t changed. So I reckon it’s about time to bring back the skinny extruded boxes.
Cover photo by Praewthida K on Unsplash
Yesterday the Washington Post published a great chart showing the housing types of the 40 largest cities, by population, in the US. The list is ordered from lowest to highest according to the percentage of single-family houses in the city (green bar).
Here’s the chart:
I tweeted this yesterday (please forgive the grammar mistake).
What it shows is a bunch of narrow urban properties ranging, for the most part, from 5 to 7 storeys. Some of them are old buildings, and some are new. Regardless, the point I wanted to make was that this is a scale and rhythm of building that does wonders for cities. They’re dense, they have a compact footprint, and they promote urban vibrancy.
And yet, it's a building type that is far too difficult to develop in many cities. It is not always the case, but oftentimes the only way to underwrite these kinds of projects is to make them ultra high-end. That's a shame. So let’s talk about this a little more, starting with what makes this urban pattern so appealing.
One key thing that narrow lots and narrow retail frontages do is increase the number of destinations within walking distance. This promotes visual interest by always showing you something new.
At the same time, there are numerous economic benefits to this urban pattern. Smaller shops lower the barrier to entry for small businesses and allow greater adaptability. Change is able to happen faster, and if one or two businesses happen to turnover on a street, it’s not the end of the world.
One way I like to think of this is in terms of shops per step.
For example, let's assume that the average walking speed is 4 km/hour and that, as a starting point, fine-grained urbanism translates into storefronts that are around 6 m wide. This would mean the average person walking on a street would see a new shop (or retail frontage) about every 9 steps.
If we instead assume a retail frontage of something like 30 m (which is five times our original 6 m), then the average person would need approximately 43 steps for every shop. This is a meaningful difference that fundamentally changes the character of a street. If you’ve ever walked on a great main street, you know this, even if you’ve never explicitly acknowledged it.
But this is only the ground floor. The other benefit of these simple, straight-up infills is that they also bring homes and offices to the same compact footprint. Density is good. It is a prerequisite for urban vibrancy. And it can be achieved simply. Strip away the facade ornament from the building examples in my tweet, and these are extruded boxes with no stepbacks to speak of.
This used to be how many (or most) cities built fabric buildings at scale, but for many reasons, we forgot how. One of the reasons is that we’ve generally made building things more onerous, and that means developers need bigger and bigger projects to justify the costs.
But it's clear our desire to experience human-scaled environments hasn’t changed. So I reckon it’s about time to bring back the skinny extruded boxes.
Cover photo by Praewthida K on Unsplash
Yesterday the Washington Post published a great chart showing the housing types of the 40 largest cities, by population, in the US. The list is ordered from lowest to highest according to the percentage of single-family houses in the city (green bar).
Here’s the chart:
Not surprisingly, many of the cities at the top of this list (meaning they have the lowest percentage of single-family houses) are in the older east coast cities.
It’s also interesting to see just how much the rowhouse dominates the urban landscape in Philadelphia and Baltimore. In Philadelphia, almost 60% of the housing stock is an attached rowhouse.
Housing is the backdrop for such a big portion of our lives. And when you live in a particular kind of home, it impacts your life whether or not you realize it. The dense rowhouses of Philadelphia and the single-family houses of Oklahoma City are the result of two very different kinds of urban landscapes.
In Toronto, that backdrop is in the midst of a dramatic change. More and more of us are now living in high-rise condos. That hasn’t always been the case, of course. It’s a recent shift. But it looks like it’ll be a big part of our future.
Not surprisingly, many of the cities at the top of this list (meaning they have the lowest percentage of single-family houses) are in the older east coast cities.
It’s also interesting to see just how much the rowhouse dominates the urban landscape in Philadelphia and Baltimore. In Philadelphia, almost 60% of the housing stock is an attached rowhouse.
Housing is the backdrop for such a big portion of our lives. And when you live in a particular kind of home, it impacts your life whether or not you realize it. The dense rowhouses of Philadelphia and the single-family houses of Oklahoma City are the result of two very different kinds of urban landscapes.
In Toronto, that backdrop is in the midst of a dramatic change. More and more of us are now living in high-rise condos. That hasn’t always been the case, of course. It’s a recent shift. But it looks like it’ll be a big part of our future.
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