Best form of moderate-density housing? (versus, downtown, market, architect)

[eschaton]

Given the off-topic discussion in a related thread, I thought it would be worthwhile to have a concrete thread on the plusses and minuses of different forms of moderate-density housing.

By moderate density, I mean semi-detached and attached housing built in units smaller than an apartment building. In the Anglophile world, there are essentially three types.

One is the well known rowhouse, often called a townhouse when built to a higher standard, and generally called a terraced house in the UK. These are houses which are generally attached on either side to other houses. Within, although they may be narrow, each house is constructed like a conventional single-family home. The main advantage of this style is it lends itself to owner-occupiers, as an owner retains control over their own street facade and back (and possibly front) yard. In addition, even in older construction, heating costs are often lower due to sharing heated walls on two sides. The disadvantages are largely due to ventilation and lighting issues due to only the front and the back of the house having windows.

A variant on this is the semi-detached duplex. Although technically a rowhouse with only one shared wall, in practice they usually resemble single-family homes with two entrances. Their advantage over rowhouses are more natural light, more ventilation, some more privacy, and control over a side (and usually front) yard. The disadvantage is you have no control over your neighbor's remodeling, which can result in a jarring eyesore next door (if he has an ugly paint color, you probably have to follow). In addition, they were usually built at a later point, and sadly often to lower aesthetic standards, than rowhouses.

The alternative idea was to have a large structure where you have the residences spread horizontally across a single floor, but you have neighbors on the other floors. In Britain, this is where the term flat came from (which is now used as a more general apartment term), but in the U.S. they are usually called two-deckers, triple-deckers, or when they are duplexed six-packs. Natural light and ventilation are, in most cases, similar to single-family houses. However, the structure lends itself to apartments, not owner-occupiers, which led them to be more likely to fall into disrepair. As some have gentrified, owner-occupiers have taken on first floors while renting out the rest, and in some cases, they have been converted into mini-condos.

Thee's also the question of brick/stone versus wood/siding. There are pluses and minuses of each. Brick and stone keep up great with minimal pointing and cleaning, but it is all-but impossible to put on an addition without it looking jarring. It's also, generally speaking, too expensive to use as a modern construction material within most of the U.S. Wood (and some modern siding forms) can look nice, but due to painting concerns wood houses have been far more likely to be poorly remodeled with facades like aluminum siding.

[HandsUpThumbsDown]

Big fan of rowhouses. I've spent many of my years in them. For the most part, it's well used small space. And yes, heating costs are considerably lower if you're in a row.

[wburg]

I like variety. Generally I prefer going to all-you-can-eat places, not because I'm a big hearty eater but because I like being able to have a little bit of lots of different things--or if a restaurant offers a "combo" with several different appetizers or smaller portions of multiple entrees, typically I'll choose that. So rather than liking one more than the others, I like a neighborhood with a mixture of all those types--plus a couple other local variants found on the West Coast.

First is the detached row house, basically like an East Coast row house but separated by a few feet and typically of wood construction. Because our summers are long and hot, and our winters are practically T-shirt weather by Northeastern standards, the insulation benefits of shared walls and brick construction are less important than ventilation and shade. They're well-suited to narrow lots and come in one and two story variants, typically elevated enough to provide a ground floor "basement." Typically they have narrow front yards, 5-15 feet, but being elevated off the ground creates a sense of dominance over the sidewalk and separation from the street. They almost inevitably have large porches in my neck of the woods. Like Eastern row houses, they typically have small backyards, suitable for a little bit of gardening or, on a deeper lot, an alley garage.

Second is the bungalow court, generally a small lot containing 4-8 small detached or semi-detached one-story buildings, generally in a Tudor Revival or Spanish Colonial Revival style, all facing a common landscaped courtyard (sometimes with a fountain or other decorations) and generally with a small gate in front. These are typically rentals rather than ownership housing, but they're long on charm and produce a surprising density for a one-story tall building. Like detached row houses, they are easy to shade with trees and ventilate, but are lower to the ground--the enclosed courtyard provides some space and privacy from the street. These became popular in the 1910s and 1920s.

In addition to the "six-packs" mentioned above, my neighborhood has a lot of duplexes and fourplexes, which vary from architecturally dramatic buildings that folks often assume were huge mansions converted to multi-unit housing (but were generally purpose built as multi-unit) to a fairly unlovable Mansard-roofed variant with T-111 siding. There are also single-family conversions where a former single-family home was split up into multiple apartments, a legacy of World War II when there wasn't much lumber to build new apartment buildings but a huge demand for apartment housing (and a low demand for big single-family homes downtown.) Most recently a lot of those conversions are being converted back into single-family housing, but many are still divided into rentals that tend to be long on charm but often a little janky in execution. Because they weren't designed as multi-unit housing, things like kitchens and bathrooms are tacked on wherever they will fit and no two are alike.

The 1950s and 60s brought the dingbat, typically 2-3 story apartment buildings with stucco siding. Some look basically like a shoebox, others have varying levels of Mid-Century architectural design like contrasting vertical and horizontal elements, perforated metal or pierced stone block walls, or interior/exterior design elements (like having a tree growing up through multiple stories in an interior landing.) They also sometimes have plywood or stucco architectural elements stuck to the outside, like those in the "dingbat" fonts, which give the style its name. In southern California they typically have a couple of parking spaces in front, but where I live there is alley access so the parking is in the back, or in larger units, accessible from the alley in a parallel-parked lot on the ground floor with apartments above. Typically there aren't enough parking spaces for all the units--it is expected that some folks won't have cars, or will park on the street.

Speaking of alleys, a lot of places around here have alley units, ranging from little garages with multiple apartments on an upper story, or small homes built right on the alley, or sometimes full-sized Victorian homes relocated from other parts of the city and stuck on the back of the lot. Some of the local "new urbanists" are reintroducing the trend of alley units, although they often claim it is a radical brand-new idea even when there are 100 year old examples on the same alley as their [smug] amazingly original new concept in urban living[/smug].

And then there's the apartments above the store. They sometimes seem practically invisible, but they provide a level of hidden density to otherwise underutilized space and they are definitely cheap and convenient. There are also apartments above a corner bar/nightclub that would be too noisy for me, but if you're a 24 hour party person (or hearing impaired) I imagine it wouldn't be so bad. In the case of a place above a convenience store or laundromat, it provides a helpful amenity very nearby. There are even apartments above a supermarket nearby, but the developer was stupid and built large, expensive luxury apartments instead of inexpensive, convenient ones, so he has had a hard time renting them--folks looking for luxury aren't necessarily wanting to live above a Safeway (maybe a Trader Joe's, though.)

Finally, it isn't a housing style, but punkhouses and other forms of communal or shared housing (communes, frat/sorority houses, etc.) typically split the rent of a larger house with a lot of bedrooms, sharing rent and housekeeping duties (or shirking on same.) If the neighbors don't object too much, these can often be the sites of parties or underground live music venues (or at least band practice spaces) until someone calls the cops too often or the rent doesn't get paid on time.

[Malloric]

Bungalow courts of what wburg mentioned would be my favorite. I'd call that high low-density rather than moderate density however. I really like the mid-rise apartments in Prague. Typically around five storeys, zero setback, some commercial on the ground floor especially on but not limited to busy streets, courtyard in the center. Note that this is Zizkov, which is mostly working-class.
zizkov - Google Maps
Posher Vinohrady.
Vinohrady, Praha-Praha 2, Česká republika - Google Maps

[wburg]

They're higher density than rowhouses or even a triple-decker, so I figured they count. One thing about rowhouses is that they are making a comeback--in Portland they call them "skinny houses," around here they don't really have a name but I call them "nurbs"--New Urbanist dwellings. Like row houses they are typically 2-3 stories, detached by only a couple of feet, although the modern variant generally has a garage in the ground floor and the originals weren't designed for garages (although many have been retrofitted with ground-floor garages in the former basement.) But if you look at the new "nurbs" and kind of squint, the basic housing form is essentially a row house in function and density. They also fit in well in neighborhoods that already have a lot of this sort of housing form.

[Malloric]

Depends on the rowhouses. Park Slope is much more dense than Zizkov is.... it sort stretches on and on uniformly. Zizkov you can't go far without hitting a park or square, and the courtyards amount of a fair amount of space.

[nei]

Originally Posted by Malloric

Depends on the rowhouses. Park Slope is much more dense than Zizkov is.... it sort stretches on and on uniformly. Zizkov you can't go far without hitting a park or square, and the courtyards amount of a fair amount of space.

My guess is they'd be similar. Park Slope has setbacks, backyards and slightly wider streets. Zizkov buildings looks taller and more urban but that could be misleading.

Here's Park Slope, which kinda looks like Sesame Street:

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Park+...8.32,,0,-17.31

and Zizkov:

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Zizko...8.26,,0,-15.87

from the satellite view:

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Zizko...gl=us&t=k&z=17

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Park+...+York&t=k&z=17

Zizkov looks a bit less dense but I think it's debatable unless you look up the numbers. Park Slope is denser than the typical row house neighborhood; many row houses contain two units: one in the bottom 2 floors and another in the top 2 floors, each 3 bedrooms rather than top to bottom being one unit. Its census tracts are consistently 55-60k / sq mile, even though some row houses are shorter and their style isn't consistent for much of any distance. A triple decker or semi-detached neighborhood is at most half that density. So, Park Slope row houses probably belong in the high density category rather than moderate.

I'm curious what the Zizkov courtyards look like.

Sunset Park near Park Slope has slightly shorter building but much of it is even denser than Park Slope, by around 50% more. This is because of the residents are poor Mexican families overcrowding the rowhouses.

[nei]

Oh, blah.

I could have just looked it up. Wikipedia claims 27k / sq mile for Zizkov, a bit less than half of the density of Park Slope. The parks must be a density killer for Zizkov. So I guess it counts as moderate density, but definitely not low density.

And yikes, it could have fallen victim to urban renewal:

In the 1970s, the communist city government of Prague developed plans to completely rebuild the district. The narrow streets were to be widened and the old tenements replaced by precast-concrete apartment blocks. These plans, however, were repeatedly postponed and eventually discarded after the overthrow of communism in 1989.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by wburg

I like variety.

Lots of feedback, I like that. Southern California sure sounds different than what I am used to.

Originally Posted by wburg

detached row house

I'll admit this is an urban form. It's common in old Pittsburgh in neighborhoods with steep hills, as the grade changes made rows difficult to build. They also tend to be frame, as brick was only used to build worker housing in flat neighborhoods by the rivers where they didn't need to haul it very far.

Originally Posted by wburg

bungalow court

Looking around online, I don't think you can call this to be a structurally dense form. A good deal of the square footage seems to be comprised of housing, but I think moderate density, by definition, has to be 2-3 stories. Otherwise, you might as well call southern shotgun houses moderate density as well.

Originally Posted by wburg

duplexes and fourplexes

Your description reminds me of this 4-unit I see on my commute to the local natural foods co-op. I can't say I like it, but it gives the external appearance of formerly being a near-mansion, although a closer examination shows there's no way they could have jury-rigged those four front doors in.

Originally Posted by wburg

single-family conversions

I don't count these. Yes, they are dense in the population sense, but these were structurally meant to be single-family housing. These conversions are most common in Pittsburgh in areas where the houses were formerly quite grand, but now too big to house single families, like much of Friendship, or the "student slums" of Oakland.

Originally Posted by wburg

dingbat

I've never seen anything like those. They remind me of a small, mid-century motel.

Originally Posted by wburg

alley units

These are common enough in Pittsburgh, especially in old rowhouse neighborhoods, where some people sold their backyards to developers who built a lower-quality rowhouse there. Many such houses exist right near me. Sadly, due to the almost universally poor housing stock, they tend to remain low-end rental units, even in areas of increasing demand.

Originally Posted by wburg

apartments above the store.

These are a style I'm of course aware of. That said, I'd consider these a variant on flats, since generally speaking they are apartments which comprise an entire floor of a building with a commercial first floor.

Originally Posted by wburg

punkhouses

No. A bunch of unrelated people living together in a single-family house is not denser than a large family living in one. And certainly, it is not structurally dense.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Malloric

I really like the mid-rise apartments in Prague. Typically around five storeys, zero setback, some commercial on the ground floor especially on but not limited to busy streets, courtyard in the center. Note that this is Zizkov, which is mostly working-class.
zizkov - Google Maps
Posher Vinohrady.
Vinohrady, Praha-Praha 2, Česká republika - Google Maps

While they are quite nice, I'm not sure I'd say they are moderate density structurally, as they're built pretty close to the level of pre-elevator tenements in cities like New York City. I'd say buildings taller than three stories which were set up as multi-unit dwellings are by definition (low-high) density, with modern residential towers being very high density.