17/03/10 – Toronto – Analysis

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Hi All,

I decided to reimagine yesterday’s terraces a la St John’s, Newfoundland.

PaulC,

I noticed that as well. After reviewing the test results, plans, and comments I think that the parking is being scored more for its internal design. Its impact on the rest of the house seemed to be picked up in the organization section. I probably should have mentioned that as an observation.

Thanks.

Unfortunately, no green…

John,
I managed to isolate your charts by replaying your video.
Looking at the three highest rated elements after garages, we see living room, kitchen and bathrooms; the outdoor living, bedrooms and laundry rate lower. The plans you used to illustrate the bad entries and organization showed us how the other elements end up with lower ratings. The bedrooms were adversely affected by those hall/circulation issues, the outdoor living space is reached only by one back area (great room) and the laundry is fit in wherever possible, sometimes pretty good and sometimes not.

Overall it becomes obvious that units are built to sell. Buyers will be reassured to see a garage, a pretty nice living room and kitchen and enough bathrooms to handle a family’s needs. But after that, the elements can be hit and miss. Do they not matter so much? Perhaps they’re just easier to ignore as one tours the open house.

The one factor that I find most unfavourable is that outdoor living space. When you have everyone’s unit lined up so closely beside one another (sometimes only 20 ft apart), how much privacy do you really have on your deck or patio? It seems the only way around this problem is for wider or staggered units, which uses up valuable land space. Will the rooftop deck become more popular as density increases? With a screening wall, they do allow better privacy than a similar space on the ground.

Good analysis.
The fundamental issues that seem to cause all the problems are that the width of the lots or units have decreased over the years as the area of the residences has increased. The large (>2500 sq.ft.) houses show this in spades, leading to the street-scape being dominated by garages and cars.
I live in a 25 year old development where the large homes have a reasonable rectangular footprint and there is at least 8-10 ft between the homes, When you go to narrow lots the only answer is to go from 2 to 3 storeys, as you intimated, otherwise you will never solve the problems that come up again and again.

John and Matt

I have been lurking on the site but not contributing. (Working on other projects vs feeding an internet addiction, which unfortunately does not make money.)
I have two kudos.

I appreciate John’s work on combing the data and going back to look at individual floor plans. Today’s Toronto Analysis of townhouses was extremely interesting because it shows how one move (increasing the size) poses more problems (rooms with viewless windows, circulation problems and pan-handled bedrooms) all because the townhouse has been made longer.
Designing becomes a bit like a chess game where the first few moves can lead to a win or into more difficulties.

Which leads to my second comment. One of the most valuable parts of the site is John’s explanation of how he goes about a project. After Matthew has listed all the issues he wants solved and hands out a demolition plan everyone goes a solves the issues. Except for me. I get stuck on the first few moves. John explains his first move and his reasons for the moves after that, which shows how an architect thinks and how to make the right opening moves.

My favourite McLuhan quotation: “I don’t want opinion, I want insight.”
theslowhome.com is heavy on the insight

PS When I first went house-hunting (hundreds of years ago) I made floor plans of each house I visited, then looked a my plans and notes each evening and tried to imagine me living in that particular house. Recently I have been touring condos, usually in restored warehouses, and because they are new, they are made to sell quickly. The decorating is usually dark wood, with silver and white lights and accessories. It is all overwhelming and unless one can step back and look at the floor plan I think condo hunters, including me, are led astry by the dazzle.

Jim X

Hi Molly K
Thanks for your comments.
My comments were a little ambiguous. I’ve contributed to the site before, but have not posted any comments since about mid-January. I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of posts on the site and had other demands on my time.
Cheers
Jim

I have enjoyed this weeks approach and Johns explanation as to how the data collected can be very usefully mined. It seems to me that two major “projects” may be emerging for the slow home. One would be a shorter term on, through the slow home test which would involve helping people to analyze their living space whether it is for a new purchase or a remodel in order to make it as slow as possible. The other is a longer term and more difficult one, to influence city planners and developers to create great slow neighbourhoods.

I agree Mollyk, lets get the the test into the hands of those people touring the show homes. Murray, that photo brought bake fond memories of one of the best vacations ever. Would love to know what the interiors of the houses are like.

I was watching your review today and two of the patterns from A Pattern Language came to mind.
Regarding the entries, what if the Open Stair pattern http://www.jacana.plus.com/pattern/P158.htm was employed? I looked for a precedent image like the one in the book and couldn’t find one quickly. I was thinking of the case where the stairs begin outside and finish inside the building shell.
As the primary living space is on the second and third floors, there is less of a connection to the outside. This may be an opportunity to employ the Street Windows http://www.jacana.plus.com/pattern/P164.htm This pattern often goes with the Window Place pattern too.

Molly K and Carol,

You touch on the heart and soul of this project. I believe that home buyers are the people who would most benefit from the Slow Home Test. Our “almost published” book (be prepared for an announcement in Friday’s segment) is a guide to using the Test for that very purpose. The Slow Home Project complements that endeavor by demonstrating how many bad house designs there are out there and the need to consider design quality when looking at a house.

In terms of enacting a “bigger” kind of change, my hope is that when we are finished with the 9 cities, the results of the Slow Home Project will be a formidable tool with which to get peoples attention – both legislators and people in the industry.

Matthew I had hopes for seeing green but at least you broke away from black today ;) John thank you for the post. It propels me to comment about a few things I have observed. So below are three things on bedrooms/garages/closets:
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1. Condo and Townhome observations. Main bedroom/closet size. The bedrooms in SINGLE level condos suffer in lower sq footage units(I cannot get into the data today but I bet 1000 and under). It was rare to find the desirable slow 10 by 12 bedroom space (120 sq feet) and the closet would be maybe but not always 5 feet or more. Yes we would find a good size main bedroom but an obstruction would be present like a corner pillar or box. When we get to the LOFTS or two story condos we find larger and more usable space in the main bedroom and the closets maybe getting bigger or walk in (again I cannot get into the data today). Moving on to the next housing type it looks to be a cardinal rule of townhomes to list this in their brochure: “features a large master bedroom with walk-in closet” The size of this walk-in closet differs. From one that should not be called a walk-in to supersized. As for the master bedroom floorspace I am struggling to find a master bedroom that is our ideal footage of 120 (10*12). Clicking through at least a 14 tonight NOT ONE was under 165 sq feet. The slow bedroom usually is one of the secondary bedrooms.
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2.Front garage in Toronto is KING. We rarely found sunken garages for the townhomes (below grade) and I think maybe one for homes? If we did they usually were in a large shared underground parking structure. Rear garages I think we found in maybe three developments be it townhome or home.
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3. Front garages in Toronto are integrated into the front façade. Garages in Toronto do not tend to be the SNOT house look I think you call it John? They tend to have the garage flush with the living area to the side. Or if they do set back the actual living space it is not extremely generous (maybe 8 feet). For achieving a slow home one thing can be said about a snot house- it may lend itself to better circulation then what we see here in Toronto, as that long front nightmare of a hallway usually disappears.
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Past few days on graph paper I have been playing with a 3 story townhome on a 20 foot lot with an attached one or two car garage (ignoring such factors of depth of lot or code issues). I do not envy the designer that strives for good circulation. John you are so correct that a garage hinders the design. Which lead me to think more about the garage. I will post that in my next comment.

Mid America Mom