This is Day 156 of the Slow Home Project and we need you to join us in our quest to evaluate the design quality of houses in nine North American cities in nine months. This week we are analyzing townhomes in Philadelphia and today we will be taking an indepth look at parking spaces.
For today’s “In Detail” episode we are reviewing parking garages in townhouse projects. All of our examples have been pulled from the Philadelphia area.
For a house to be considered a Slow Home, the spaces devoted to parking must be appropriate for the size of the house – in other words a 1,200 sq ft townhouse with a three car garage is not appropriate – and the garage should not dominate or interfere with the design of the rest of the house.
We need you to search through the projects posted from the Philadelphia area and find examples of what you think are good and bad parking garages in town homes, then post them to our discussion page along with your comments.
When you are ready, click on the player below to watch John and Matthew’s tutorial on what are the critical design criteria for parking in townhouses.
Here are the detailed plans from today’s tutorial on parking:
1. This is a badly designed single parking space. Notice how the front entry to the unit is next to the garage and there is not enough room for anything more than a tight hallway. Also, pay close attention to the clearance on the side of the garage door because there is not the required 2 feet of side room to walk around your car.
2. This is a good example of a single car garage – the entry to the house is sufficiently wide enough even though it is next to the garage.
3. This is a bad example of a double car garage in a town home. Notice how the entry to the unit infringes onto the parking space with that 45 degree angled wall. There is also not the required 2 foot clearances on either side of the garage door.
4. This is a better strategy for a double car garage in a town home. The entry is on the second floor, so there is no conflict with entry next to the parking area.
5. This is a bad example of a single car garage that has a negative impact on the rest of the house – there is not enough width on the unit to provide a parking space, the front door and a living room. In this example, the living room gets the short end of the stick as there is no room left over to place furniture by the front window.
6. This is a better example of a single car garage where there is enough room for the parking, an entry and the living room – compare this to the example above.
7. This is a bad example where a single car garage is at the back of the town home. The problem is that the developer is trying to fit a bedroom, the entry and the garage all onto one narrow footprint and has to use awkward 45 degree angles to make it all work. Town homes that have the garage, the entry and a bedroom all on one level need to be scrutinized with extreme caution as this is a design condition that is rarely executed well.
8. This is a good example of single parking space with a shared entry for both the door to the unit as well as the door to the garage. It is
preferable if these two uses can be consolidated to save space and be more efficient.
Join us tomorrow for our Friday wrap up where we will be reviewing the “Design Project” submissions from yesterday as well as announcing the Slow Homer of the Week and voting on who you think should win the Slow Home Award for the best town house project in Philadelphia!
