Robert Sharp @sharp_architect

Another mansion block scheme by @OS_Architects (right is the site currently). We are continually told that beautiful buildings are unviably expensive, and yet this little Stockport practice produces a stream of handsome buildings on tricky infill sites in extremely weak Northern housing markets.

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People often mistake our new builds for historic renovations. Townsend is no exception. We’re not trying to make anything look old — we’re simply using the methods and materials that were standard a hundred years ago, and for most people the only reference point for that craft is the historic buildings still standing. When you respect masonry as a material, and how it works in compression rather than tension, you are limited. Arches need certain dimensionality to support the weight above them; natural stones need thickness to span a window; large openings need “buttressing” at the ends to carry the load to the ground. Historic buildings were guided by these limitations; there was no way around them for thousands of years (until the advent of mass-produced steel). Our eyes have grown accustomed to the proportions of real masonry buildings, and it’s why modern brick buildings don’t fit into that intuitive understanding. Something looks off. People may not be able to point out why it looks off, or exactly what is different about our buildings, but they sense it. They know it. @matt_hayes4 and I are good designers (we designed Townsend together), but I believe it’s our respect and understanding of the material itself that makes Building Culture’s work stand out. Rather than trying to overcome the limitations of masonry, making it do something it wasn’t intended to do with steel, we celebrate those limitations. There is a whole world of exploration within the material. As any artist will tell you: limitations are the key to creativity. The geometries inherent in compression-only buildings reflect the laws of nature, and are harmonious – just like all the great buildings throughout history. We’re not copying historic buildings; we’re trying to build the future’s historic buildings.

@UrbanCourtyard I love the term "Austerity Facade" and I will be using it in the future.

We've made the cheapest forms of housing illegal, difficult, or financially impossible to produce, then we are shocked when the poorest folks can't find housing. If we want fewer people living outside, we need to rebuild the housing ladder from the bottom up.

That’s interesting about the difference in rent control affecting flat development. Another way the post-war Spanish development differs from pre-war is that the roads and buildings are much larger. The pre-war developments are finer-grained, have smaller lots, smaller buildings.

Almost all of the cities of the West sprawl, with high rise cores giving way to mid-rise blocks, to rowhouses, to detached homes, to exurbs and only then to countryside. One country stands out as an exception: Spain. Even today, Spanish cities expand in mid-rise blocks including shops and businesses, served by extensive metros, and structured in traditional courtyard blocks. The style of the facades has changed, but in other respects they are still close to the urbanism of Barcelona’s nineteenth-century Eixample neighbourhood. This is extremely distinctive. Americans often imagine that all European cities are like this, but actually most Europeans switched over to car-dependent suburbia in the twentieth century, much like the American norm. worksinprogress.co/issue/why-spai… Why did Spain diverge? - Spain remained very poor until late in the twentieth century, limiting suburbanisation. By the time Spain was rich enough for suburbs, new urbanist ideals were already beginning to appear. - Traditional Spanish flat-building practices were not decimated by rent controls as they were in France and Germany, avoiding a forcible switch to owner-occupied single-family houses. - The Spanish state still plans street networks like European and American municipalities in the nineteenth century, and Spanish landowners normally pool their land in land readjustment schemes to create a unified landowner. Spain never really had a conscious plan to diverge from international urban norms – the divergence happened partly by accident. But it shows that multiple ways of building cities remain possible in affluent societies. Today, hundreds of Asian cities are near the densities and GDPs of Spain in the 1960s, when the Spanish Divergence began. If they want, they can choose the Spanish path, and grow like modern Madrid (left) rather than modern Alburquerque (right).

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@Tesho13 @JeffSpeckFAICP @mnolangray @DonaldShoup Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk says, “This book should be required reading in schools of urban design, architecture, and landscape architecture, and an understanding of it should be part of the licensing requirements for civil, traffic, and transportation engineers.”

We are developing some proposals for a modern mansion block with taller ceilings, more windows, better communal areas and a private garden. We’ve been researching Albert Hall Mansions and Richard Norman Shaw who is credited with making flats desirable to the aspiring Victorian middle classes @archi_tradition @Aesthetic_City @createstreets

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We have some new visuals to share for our Charter House scheme on Churchgate in Stockport for 27 dual aspect homes. Work will start on site later this year. @archi_tradition @Aesthetic_City @stopinstockport

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@shawngorham @RandallHouseRE

We used to have these. They were called Apartment Hotels. They’d consist of a single room with a bathroom, housecleaning, a cafeteria and lounges. Imagine being able to rent month to month and not need to furnish an apartment. It was ideal. Nuts we got rid of these.

Ellen Pasternack @pastasnack_e

4 months ago

Lots of people's social & romantic lives could be vastly improved if it was normal for young adults to live in college dorm-style accommodation in city centres until they were ready to set up home properly. Why doesn't this exist? I think there would be a market for it!

277 129 6K 1.7M 778

One thing you’ll notice on old homes is, the roof lines are always reasonable and exist due to the structure of the house requiring it. In this case, a gabled roof with the ends perpendicular to the front of the house, gabled dormer on the second floor looking out. They chose to make the entry gabled over the stairs, but that was a style decision, and it makes sense. Modern homes have the most ridiculous roof lines that don’t correspond to anything inside the house.

This will spark some controversy 😂🙄 We pour all our driveways on every single house or townhome we build PRIOR to framing. 95% of our projects are specs. We’ve been doing it this way for 15+ years… PROS: -Keeps the jobsite immaculately clean. -Very few calls from the stormwater guy. -Materials stay out of the mud. -Concrete guys never have to come back which saves $$$$ on every bid we get. CONS: -Driveway gets dirty (power wash it). -Framers have to keep lift off driveway. We were called crazy & stupid so many times when we started doing this by subcontractors, realtors & our competitors. In 15+ years we’ve never lost a house sale or townhome sale because of it, and it’s saved us hundreds of thousands of dollars when you multiply the savings over hundreds of homes & townhomes. We poured this driveway yesterday at our Nicklaus Circle spec 👊🏽 Framing will start next week.

@nealjclark1 Highly likely to have a good outcome there.

@CharlestonArchi I feel that we need a program where useful neighborhood businesses like hardware and office supply stores are eligible for philanthropy, just like opera houses and museums.

@kylej2444 @RandallHouseRE HPRs are uncommon here. The previous owner understood the value of the unit as a rental and probably had some serious owner fatigue.

Some of us were just put on this earth to draw townhouses.

The homes in Lonsdale Square, Islington, are like few other buildings in London. Finished in 1845 in a Gothic Revival style, they take you entirely by surprise, emerging unexpectedly from the surrounding Georgian terraces.

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Family friendly density

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