Shophouses for Economic Development

in

From Bernama.com, the Malaysian National News Agency: "The Sabah Economic Development Corporation (Sedco) will be introducing an affordable shophouse scheme to help raise the economy of Bumiputera entrepreneurs in the state.  Chairman of Sedco, Datuk Mohd Arifin Arif, said for a start, 10 units will be built in Membakut early next year before the scheme is expanded by stages to all other districts in Sabah.  'We will identify suitable locations in other districts to build the affordable shophouses and hopefully all Bumiputera entrepreneurs will benefit from this.'"  Full article here.  If any reader can find out more information about this program, it would be much appreciated.  (Photo credit: Mysabah.com.)

New Townhouses in Cincinnati

in

The latest issue of Urban Land magazine mentioned a townhouse project in Cincinatti known as City Home (photo credit: urban-out.com).  The project is a collaboration among Over The Rhine Community Housing, Eber Development, and Schickel Design and has resulted in new for-sale townhomes in  downtown Cincinnati.  The architect's website mentions several features of the project: dense, urban infill location with existing utilities; tall, operable windows for daylight and cross-ventilation; tnterior courtyard to bring light and air into the core; energy Star 5-Star Plus rating (highest possible); community resources within walking distance.

Jeff Speck Residence Images

in

A couple of days ago, Jeff Speck himself -- architect, planner, former Director of Design for the National Endowment for the Arts, and co-author of the Smart Growth Manual -- graciously sent us some photos of his residence.  It is a "flatiron" building on an acutely triangular lot, so it is not as prototypical as most of the buildings we aim to feature on this website.  However, it is a small attached urban building, and it is full of many lessons for townhouse designers.  So we uploaded them to the TownhouseCenter group/photo pool on Flickr.  Check out the set here!  How does its design respond to that of its neighboring buildings?  How does it accomplish circulation -- vertical and horizontal -- in an efficient way?  If you have images of townhouses -- photos or drawings -- upload them to Flickr, join the TownhouseCenter group, and add them to our photo pool for all to enjoy!

The Stoop in Brooklyn, Explained

in

From Brownstoner Brooklyn: "As in many things New York, we can thank the Dutch for the stoop, both the concept and the name, which originated from the word stoep.  Flooding was no longer a major concern, but the stoop gave the architect a reason for a more elaborate entryway, and stoops were immediately and universally embraced in our row house design ever since.  Most New York streets did not have service alleyways, like Philadelphia and Baltimore, so the stoop allowed a service entrance to be built underneath the main stairway, to allow servants and deliveries to enter the house and kitchen.  Because people eventually want change, the Anglo-Italianate style also developed.... Based on English terrace houses, these homes did not have tall stoops at all, but instead were the first 'English basement' style houses, where one entered on the ground level with only one or two stairs up, and there was no service floor below."  Full article here.

Vancouver Townhouses, In Memory

in

From the Vancouver Sun: "For all that they are new, the three homes commanding the prominent Vancouver intersection of 33rd and Cambie have quite a past, a multi-decade history of individual eagerness and institutional reluctance.  The late Art Cowie started building them more than 40 years ago, when life abroad introduced him to the 'fee-simple' townhouse or rowhouse.  [...]  Vancouver city hall doesn't like the fee-simple rowhouse, and has a legal opinion that favours its disfavour.  'The problem here is that party wall agreements die with individual owners,' says Suzanne Anton, a Vancouver city councillor and lawyer."  Full article here.

Newfoundland Rowhouses

in

From the Owlery Chronicles: "Anyone who’s visited or lived in St. John’s knows that much of the city’s character can be attributed to the brightly coloured rowhouses that line the winding downtown streets.  [...]  I love my little row house with its quirky character, its slanted floors, its creaks and groans. Narrow staircases lead to the top floor that has a decent enough view of Signal Hill and the harbour.  [...]  Different shapes, new colours (of the houses and in the characters who live within them) – all part of St. John’s vernacular architecture."  Full article with photos here.

Brownstones v. Lincoln Center

in

From NYTimes writer Roberta Brandes Gratz, an article about revitalizing the Upper West Side.  Regarding the brownstones: "Yet where others saw risk, we saw opportunity: affordable housing, racial and economic diversity and a vision of a sustainable, vibrant community not yet on the urban demographer’s radar.  [...]  Most Upper West Side brownstones had been built in the late 1890’s for middle-class families but had been broken up into tiny apartments in the 1950’s and neglected since by absentee landlords. They were easily, if expensively, converted back to single-family or duplex dwellings."  Regarding Lincoln Center: "The superblock created by Lincoln Center destroyed the entire neighborhood of San Juan Hill.  [...]  For example, there’s the tenacious myth that Lincoln Center was the catalyst for the Upper West Side’s rebirth.  But if anything, Lincoln Center, with its forbidding plinth and bulky structures that turn their back on the city, was a symbol and cause of the decline of urban life."  Full article here.  (Photo credit: Fred Conrad.)

Prefab, Zero Energy Townhouse

in

The latest issue of Urban Land magazine profiled a townhouse development that already won a Green Builder Home of the Year award in 2009: a demonstration net zero energy, zero lot line, prefab, live/work townhouse that is LEED platinum certified.  Designed and developed by ZETA, its program includes a ground floor work studio, two bedrooms, and a one-car parking garage.  Order some for your city today!

First Brownstone on TV?

in

From NabeWise: "The gals of 'Sex and the City' may be trendsetters in fashion, but when it comes to brownstone living, the Huxtables were there first. Bill Cosby and his television family lived in a classic Brooklyn brownstone long before Carrie Bradshaw nabbed her apartment on the Upper East Side."  The article continues with a gloss on the history of the brownstone, pausing to note that "The iconic stoop was originally intended to keep horse droppings, slush and mud out of the home."  That's entertainment.  Full article here.

Townhouse Construction History

in

From Philly Brownstoner, an article on historical construction methods: "The construction of a rowhouse began with a surveyor, who measured and marked the boundaries of a property. A cellar was then excavated and the stone foundation walls laid by masons.  Carpenters then laid floor joists for the first floor, embedding the ends into the foundation. Scaffold boards laid across the joists were used for work platforms while bricklayers built up the façade and party walls to floor of the second level, roughing in lintels for windows and doors.  Carpenters then roughed in the structure of the partitions with wood planks or stud framing, fastening them by nails to the heavy framing joists and beams of the building.  Lath was then nailed to the substructure, over which a brown coat of plaster was applied by plasterers.  The structure and design of Philadelphia’s early vernacular buildings were essentially carried out by contractors and artisans without the direction of an architect."  Full article here.

Shophouse Photo Exhibit

in

From CNN: "German photographer Peter Nitsch’s upcoming exhibition, Shophouses, takes us to the flip side, exploring Bangkok's often over-shadowed second dimension of urbanism to provide an intimate look at these traditional retail businesses, which are found all over Thailand.  [The exhibit will run] from August 8 to September 26 at Bangkok’s Kathmandu Gallery -- an art space that is, suitably, a restored pre-war shophouse."  Full article with images here.

Not-So-Slim Townhouse

in

From the Wall Street Journal yesterday, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim bought the last remaining townhouse on 5th Avenue in NYC for $44M.  The Beaux Arts townhouse is located at 1009 5th Ave on the corner with 82nd St, across from the Met.  It is known as the Duke-Semans mansion because it was built by tobacco magnate Benjamin Duke in 1901.  Surprisingly, the price was only the fourth highest ever paid for a townhouse in NYC.  The highest was $53M for a townhouse on 75th St just off 5th Ave.  Full article here.  Just goes to show the endless variety of townhouses, which are the fundamental building blocks of cities.

Mighty Baltimore

in

From Old House Online writers James C. Massey & Shirley Maxwell, another reminder that Baltimore can't be left off the list of great townhouse cities of the world.  From brick to Formstone, from Queen Annes to Cantons to these "sunlight parlors".  Full article here.

Dwell Energy Issue

in

It's no coincidence that the last issue of Dwell, which was called "the energy issue", could have been called "the townhouse issue".  It featured three articles on townhouses: the residence of "typography guru" Erik Spiekermann and his wife Susanna Dulkinys in Berlin, a 7-townhouse development in LA that started construction in 2007 and was sold out before completion in 2009, and a townhouse in Brussels by Gon Zifroni that has no ground floor and floats between its neighbors (and sadly did not make it onto the Dwell website but is featured on other websites, such as dailytonic.com).  The LEED-est detached house in the suburbs requires more energy that a regular urban townhouse.

Slow Home Townhouses

in

The Slow Home folks, advocates of more convenient and sustainable floorplans (key to successful townhouse design), recently spent a week evaluating the floorplans of existing townhouses in Vancouver, and posting about it on their website.  The highlight of the week was posting a townhouse floorplan and inviting readers to send in improved designs.  Another post during the week discussed the important topic of bathroom location and layout in the constrained townhouse setting.  The series of posts from July 12 to 16, 2010, with images and videos, can be found on the Slow Home website.

London House in Philly

in

From Philly Brownstoner: "Dubbed the London House, indicating a popular plan found at the time in England’s capital...these rowhouses were constructed for speculative housing as the city’s population grew and a real estate was a chief investment opportunity.  Not only were these houses suitable for residential use, many of the colonial and federal city’s artisan shopkeepers operated their businesses out of the first floors of this rowhouse form.   The London House is generally 15–18 feet wide, 3 ½ stories high and constructed of brick with a gable or gambrel roof and a single dormer. The front façade has two bays of sash windows with limestone lintels and sills.  The first floor entrance was again raised a few steps from street level, often only adorned with simple woodwork, paneling and a transom window. Entrance into the interior leads either to a side hallway, as in the townhouse or to a front room the full width of the house, as in a trinity."  Full article here.

Finland Townhouse Competition

in

From Finland: "Architectural student Heikki Muntola has won first prize in the Helsinki Townhouse competition with his proposal titled tabula casa by a unanimous vote of the jury.  According to the jury, the special merits of tabula casa are its high variability according to tenant wishes and ease of application in pre-fabricated housing production."  Article here, competition site here, gallery of entries here (translated from Finnish by Google).