I appreciate the feedback from several of you on my
first site study. @Al thought that the cars were dominating the middle and that a green space should be the center and parking put to the side. @Phil suggested I try podium parking (ground level parking tucked under the buildings) @Bill suggested I look at more of the context around the site and not have such a weak corner (eg parking lot) near the cul-de-sac. I also learned a bit more about firetruck requirements. The trucks like to pull through without backing up, but can use a 'hammerhead' to turn around. Pulling through means going off the site, so I have not explored that yet.
The first plan was trying to explore the idea of a surface parking lot that could later be a parking structure. These plans abandon the idea of ever having a parking structure.
 |
| Community green space between rows of dwellings. |
Here are two new versions. One I'm calling the Long Alley because it puts an alley with garages behind all the townhouses. The other I'm calling Interior Court because it has a courtyard for two rows of townhouses. Interior court was inspired by this image of the
Berea EcoVillage.
Long Alley
Long Alley still has the problem that the center of the site is devoted to the car. It does address the 'weak corner' at the cul-de-sac and it makes lots of use of pedestal parking to avoid most of the parking lot. I'm not to wild about this, it looks like a row of little boxes and a warren of little roads.
Interior Court
Interior Court has several garden areas, but it might not work for fire access -- one alley requires backing out 150 feet. It also requires some cooperation with the northern neighbor to make a shared alley on the property line, but the neighbor may want to cooperate to better access the eastern portion of their property (across the view shed). This plan is probably short of parking, esp for the building at the cul-de-sac.
A friend commented by email:
ReplyDeleteTownhouses on a common green is a good idea, if you can afford the common green area within the project but think about the other uses that are going to be next to the green and does it provide ground floor (if you are planning on it) residential uses adequate privacy.
The concern I would have with the courtyard plan is are those eastern most buildings going to have adequate privacy and protection from headlights etc. from the Troy Highway intersection and from that walkway to the old Main st bridge. It doesn't look like anything will be built between your townhouses and the highway due to the creek and bridge.
Great feedback. I will go walk the site and do a study of headlights, etc and impacts on the eastern edge of SODO Moscow.
ReplyDelete