Housing As If People Mattered: Site Design Guidelines for the Planning of Medium-Density Family HousingFrom the Introduction: Consider these two places: Walking into Green Acres, you immediately sense that you have entered an oasis-traffic noise left behind, negative urban distractions out of sight, children playing and running on the grass, adults puttering on plant-filled balconies. Signs of life and care for the environment abound. Innumerable social and physical clues communicate to visitors and residents alike a sense of home and neighborhood. This is a place that people are proud of, a place that children will remember in later years with nostalgia and affection, a place that just feels "good." Contrast this with Southside Village. Something does not feel quite right. It is hard to find your way about, to discern which are the fronts and which are the backs of the houses, to determine what is "inside" and what is "outside." Strangers cut across what might be a communal backyard. There are no signs of personalization around doors or on balconies. Few children are around; those who are outside ride their bikes in circles in the parking lot There are few signs of caring; litter, graffiti, and broken light fixtures indicate the opposite. There is no sense of place; it is somewhere to move away from, not somewhere to remember with pride. These are not real locations, but we have all seen places like them. The purpose of this book is to assist in the creation of more places like Green Acres and to aid in the rehabilitation of the many Southside Villages that scar our cities. This book is a collection of guidelines for the site design of low-rise, high-density family housing. It is intended as a reference tool, primarily for housing designers and planners, but also for developers, housing authorities, citizens' groups, and tenants' organizations-anyone involved in planning or rehabilitating housing. It provides guidelines for the layout of buildings, open spaces, community facilities, play areas, walkways, and the myriad components that make up a housing site. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
What they are and how to use them | 10 |
List of design guidelines | 21 |
Basic considerations of the design program | 33 |
Image building form and orientation | 45 |
Personalization | 63 |
Access to dwellings | 74 |
Private open space | 94 |
Onsite facilities for adults | 185 |
Parking | 204 |
Landscaping footpaths and site furniture | 219 |
Security and vandalism | 251 |
Management maintenance and refuse disposal | 286 |
Glossary of Environmental and Related Terms | 299 |
Bibliography | 305 |
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Common terms and phrases
activities adjacent adults adventure playground Architecture Avoid balconies British building carports chil child children's play clustered housing common open space Common space communal communal areas Cooper Marcus courtyards create crime culs-de-sac density Department design responses Provide doors dren dumpsters dwellings Ensure entry environment estates facade facilities families feet fences Figure Footpath front garages garden Greater London Council Group territory guidelines high-density households housing development housing schemes landscaped spaces laundry Locate London maintenance maisonettes materials medium-density housing ment Milton Keynes Mimeo needs neighborhood neighbors outdoor path patio pedestrian personalization planning planting play areas play equipment play space porch Possible design responses private open space public housing Radburn Recreational vehicle Research resi residential residents row houses sand scaped seating Shankland shared sidewalks slides social street supervised surveillance teenagers tenants tion Tot lot traffic trees units Urban vandalism Woonerfs yards