01/04/10 – Dallas/Fort Worth – Townhomes

Posted on: April 1st, 2010 | 9 Comments

Highland Gates on Katy Trail
Wall Street Townhomes

RSVP to Slow Home in Toronto

  • MollyK

    Good morning everyone,
    John & Matthew,
    Thank you for the tutorial on Siting…I now have a much better idea of how to score this category. It seems to me that there will be subtle differences between house categories. For example, living in a high-rise will afford a different “view” of the surrounding area than living in a townhouse. The same is true for a single family home…I would think less impact from commercial buildings/traffic and more from the adjacent neighbors’ homes. But I guess it depends on where the subdivision is located and if your house happens to be on the fringe where traffic may be heavier coming in and out of the neighborhood. This may be an area where living on a cul-de-sac really is worth paying the extra money.
    To all the SlowHomers:
    I enjoyed looking at the redesigns yesterday. It was a pleasant surprise to find several with washer/dryer spaces and desks.

  • John Brown

    Good morning everyone,

    I just realized that Matthew and I neglected to ask you to send in your comments about what you think is important about siting. As with the other in detail exercises, your observations help round out the introduction that we gave.

    In your experience, what are the 2 most critical issues with siting?

  • John Brown

    Here is an interesting review of urbanity in Dallas:

    Fort Worthology recently spent the day in Big D, with the goal of taking a look at various parts of the city’s urban core, to compare and contrast urbanity in our two cities. We’re not especially big fans of Dallas here, but we’ve tried to be fair. While we’re not going to be above taking a few jabs at the city to the east, we’d also like to point out the good that Dallas has done in their quest for urban rejuvenation, in addition to the challenges still ahead of them. So, let’s smash straight into it, shall we?

    http://fortworthology.com/2009/03/05/fort-worthology-goes-to-dallas/

  • MollyK

    John,
    My 2 most critical issues for siting:
    (1) home on home impact…in other words, direct impact from neighboring homes regardless of the house type.
    (2) actual view beyond the residence
    Another note worthy issue is congestion/noise in dense areas…depending on the type of home it might rank #2. You would expect this problem in urban areas moreso than suburban. However, there are plenty of neighborhoods that have congestion problems at their entrances, especially if they border major roads.

  • Murray

    Terri – and others wondering about image size – I don’t use Paint, but I did an experiment (yesterday’s post), and I have an answer.

    When the floor plan is open in Paint go to the Image drop down list and you will see Stretch/Skew – change both the horizontal and vertical percentages by the same amount – in my experiment the larger was increased 150% – your plan should post at a larger size.

    Good Luck.

    PS – John, you may want to move the red dot on the map to Dallas

  • MollyK

    Just finished reading “fortworthology” article. Wow…enjoyed it immensely, especially since we’ve been all over the area scoring apt/condo/lofts. The photos put the area in perspective…for example, Victory Park may be better on paper at this point. Artists’ renderings don’t always become reality.
    My understanding of skyscrapers is that they create wind tunnels at street level…is that correct? Mid-rise buildings would have a “gentler” breeze?

  • Terri

    I think I agree with MollyK’s two criteria for siting. How the neighbouring house/unit affects the one I’m considering is most important, and secondly the street/parking/vegetation adjacent. However, the place has to be good on both counts to get the two points allotted, because either condition can make for a poor living arrangement.

  • Terri

    Murray,
    Thanks for your help with the image sizing. I haven’t checked yesterday’s later posts, so I don’t know if anyone offered anything else, but if not, I’ll try your method next time. I don’t want to strain anyone’s eyes anymore.

  • Terri

    John,
    Thanks for posting the link to the Fort Worthology blog on Dallas’s downtown buildings. Very entertaining and informative. I wasn’t familiar with the term “starchitect” before–love it–something else I’ve learned through Slow Home.

    The blog’s focus on street scape and the impact of buildings with little relation to people touches on elements of urban planning more than architecture, because one would hope that the city planners could foresee how the building would impact the city at large. But it seems that the city of Dallas allowed more of a Big Tower mentality to prevail for a few decades (and still, it seems, from what we see in this piece). It’s nice to see so many older buildings revamped as loft/apartments though. With more people living in the downtown area, a new kind of urban environment should evolve from there.