Why is there so often a tension between good design and the bottom line?
Medium-density living is showing up everywhere around here. I think we can do it better.
There's some key constraints: Space, and how much people will pay. What seems to happen is the bottom line equation results in as many units as possible being squeezed onto the land, with every home designed to meet the needs of the mainstream, as cheaply as possible.
Typically, this results in:
- Lower-quality construction (to ensure the price is competitive)
- Non-optimal site layout (to fit the most units in)
- Internal access garages (all the subdivisions have one)
- Two- to three-bedroom units (appeals to the widest range of customers)
- Internal access double garage (because we all need one for our stuff)
- Poor landscaping (it is expensive)
Let's shift two elements of this: Garages and house size. We won't even get into potential for tiny-house style units, shared laundries and common garden areas for food production...
What if, instead of having internal access garages and long driveways, all our garages were in a separate building close to the street and we had grass areas with walking paths.
What if we were happy to have a carport instead of a garage?
What if we were happy to reduce our floor area by 10%?
There's a few ways I could see these changes in expectations play out in an approach to property development:
- More affordable housing: We could have the same style of development, sell each unit for less but fit in more units as the houses are smaller.
- Better overall site layout: We could have the same number of units, for the same price, but better site layout and design as there is more external space to play with.
- Better quality building: We could have the same site layout, but higher-quality construction.
All three of these scenarios should have a similar bottom-line. All three of these scenarios are better in some way for people.
Where are these happening?
*If you're interested in these ideas and haven't heard of Nightingale, you need to check it out by clicking here.