Category: Real Estate Development
-
A Tale of Two Cities – the Skyscraper and the Suburb
The Frank Lloyd Wright Studio in Oak Park Oak Park, Illinois is known throughout the world for its revolutionary architecture that defined the American suburb. From his Oak Park studio on Chicago Avenue, Frank Lloyd Wright and his entourage created the suburban home format on a basic grid-iron layout of streets; they developed an entirely new…
-
A Courtyard Alley in Chicago’s Loop
In the hunt for more unknown spots in Chicago; one such place covered during my “Secret Streets” presentation during Great Chicago Places and Spaces this year was 22 East Jackson Boulevard. At one time, it was better known as “Pickwick Place”. Historical View, Pickwick Place (image from Dennis McClendon) While seemingly a public right-of-way, Pickwick…
-
Walkable Alleys of Oak Park and Elsewhere
When Chicago was initially laid out in the mid 1800’s, it was surveyed with relatively shallow lots meant to support smaller, wood frame houses. There were no alleys, since there were lots of streets around. After the Great Fire, every second street was widened; the narrower streets came to be known as “addressable alleys”. They…
-
Other Coach Houses in Oak Park
Once, in a fit to buy an inexpensive though highly presentable company car for my practice, I came across a restored 1965 Chrysler Crown Imperial convertible. Trouble is, we live on that side of Oak Park where garages are accessible off of alleys; our alley surveys at sixteen feet (about 5.2) metres across. I thought…
-
The Vancouver “Laneway” House
Within the last year, the City of Vancouver (British Columbia) recently amended the City’s zoning ordinance to permit coach, or “laneway” houses to be built along back alleys (rear lanes) in certain areas. In a nutshell; in specific single family zoned areas, on lots 33’ (about 10.8 metres) or wider that have a back alley…
-
More Walls Talking – Vacant Storefronts
The current economic doldrums have brought out all sorts of vacant storefronts – not just a tell tale of the economy, but a fascinating take on urban anthropology. At first glance, they would indicate that the economy is down, that the activity that previously existed at that location fell victim to a recession. Any retail…
-
The Idea That Came Around
A freshman design studio professor warned us many times that whatever in-depth design synthesis we went through to invent something original, that we could always find that someone had already come up with it before. Pullman, a neighbourhood on the far south side of Chicago is touted as one of the first ‘planned communities’. It was…
-
Cars with Lots of Real Estate
A friend wrote in reply of my 4 July 2009 post “Big People. Little Cars. Tiny Houses. The Scale of our Neighbourhoods”, which spoke of our neighbourhoods being sized around our mode of personal transportation which, in modern day North America, tends to be our cars. To quote Alex: “There are a couple of…
-
Traditional Media vs Social Media, and it’s Similarity to Urban vs Suburban Design
The recent passing of Walter Cronkite and the commemoration of the Apollo 11 lunar landing spawned much commentary about how as a culture, we’ve lost not just trusted voice and a collective goal, even the ability to dream. There are many indicators supporting this notion, even some directly related to the design of our cities.…
-
Big People. Little Cars. Tiny Houses. The Scale of our Neighbourhoods
It was an odd conversation over the July Fourth barbeque. One side started talking about the increasing waistlines of various people. The other side was talking about my Mini, and their new-found interest in Microcars. Then – like a flyswatter hitting a mosquito – the two groups found out about each other. A sort of…