I grew up in a city of mostly rowhomes and I love them. Plan on buying one one day.
You still get walk-ability, sense of community and good population density (not as good as a high-rise but still good), but also more privacy, and the space is more conducive to raising a family than an apartment. Also they’re cute as fuck and people can paint them different colors and have cool little gardens on their porches and stuff.
Habitat 67 is another building designed for this sort of thing. The idea was high density but with gardens and a sense of community, and designed around mass-produceable modules that could be configured in a customized way. A lot of people dislike the look because the modular fabrication method used a lot of concrete, but I still think it’s a neat idea, both the original concept and the actual implementation which was trimmed down for budget reasons.
It was intended to produce cost-effective public housing, but since all we have is the prototype that was built for a world fair, there’s a fair bit of history and novelty involved that means the units are fairly expensive these days iirc.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_67
That seems to just have increased surface area, making thermal issues worse? They look pretty cool, but seem very ineffective for many of the problems with housing, including the overuse of high environmental impact materials like concrete
Just seems like it more of an attempt at modularity with a focus on the least necessary things. Something to learn from, I guess, but not very useful
You are very right. While it looks nice in terms of energy usage it is horrible. Design is also controversial and not ideal imho. Looks fun though.
As art and as a demonstration of the range of what’s possible, it does well. I don’t think it’s meant to be an example of what a common approach should be though.
I like it as art for what could be possible! It’s fun and cool like that. Just not for any utility really
It is important for us to have these things to remind us of what is possible, and to allow a broader range of imagination.
Looks great to me. Thermal properties are an issue though.