Suburban Nation - Andres Duany [83]
Attached row houses, a common urban type, should generally be placed closer to the sidewalk than freestanding houses—right up against it, with room only for the stoop. In this case, the first floor must be raised at least two feet off the ground for privacy. People don’t seem to mind sipping tea directly adjacent to passing pedestrians if those pedestrians can’t easily see over the windowsill. Residential spaces within five feet of a sidewalk must never be located at ground level, period. If one must place a ground-level room within ten feet of a sidewalk, it must be protected by a porch or a dense garden.
For retail buildings, the setback rule is straightforward: don’t have one. Traditional retail, to be successful, must pull directly up to the sidewalk, so that people can see the merchandise in the window. Parking lots in front are of course forbidden: there is little that is more destructive to pedestrian life. All parking that cannot be handled on the street can be provided by mid-block lots that are hidden behind buildings. The connection from mid-block parking to street-shop entrances is a tricky one, and must be handled with extreme care. The most effective technique is the traditional pedestrian passage, illustrated here in Winter Park, in which a carefully detailed walkway—often articulated with trellises, fountains, stairways to second-floor apartments, and landscaping—connects the rear parking lot to the street. Experienced retailers recognize this passage as a merchandizing opportunity, and flank it with windows and indoor/outdoor displays. In Palm Beach, a series of charming “paseos” helps to make Worth Avenue one of America’s most successful shopping destinations.
The pedestrian passage: handling the transition from Main Street to hidden parking
Whether commercial or residential, taller buildings are to be encouraged because they use land more efficiently while doing a better job defining the public space. Most houses should be a minimum of two stories tall. One-story shops and offices, the suburban standard, fail to provide for mixed use and are a waste of valuable land. They should be combined with each other or with housing whenever possible. Where no other mechanism exists to make this happen, municipalities should direct their housing subsidies to the construction of apartments above shops.
There is one last rule that much of suburbia needs to follow: traditional architectural detailing, if used at all, should be used accurately, or it results in parody. There is no specific argument or justification for this rule, except for the horrible feeling that one gets when it is broken. Unfortunately, many modern architects put so much effort into fighting all traditional architecture—a losing battle—that they fail to distinguish between good historicism and tack-on kitsch, which is where they could exert a more positive influence.
PARKING
When building new places, one quickly finds that the amount of dwellings, shops, and offices that one can provide depends primarily on the amount of parking that can be accommodated. As one of our clients puts it, “parking is destiny.” Unfortunately, parking is often a very anti-urban destiny, as most municipalities’ parking requirements make higher densities impossible without multilevel parking garages, something that most developers can’t afford to build. The high cost of structured parking—$12,000 per place, versus $1,500 in a surface lot—is the reason why almost every new suburban building is either less than three stories tall or more than ten stories tall; only a tower can pay for a parking garage.
When new towns are being built in the suburbs, parking requirements