Charleston, South Carolina side-yard house "repetition is sustainable urban form"

From Traditional Building writer Ralph Muldrow: "Historic Charleston, SC, has weathered more than its share of traumas since its founding in 1670.  The seal of the city has a Latin phrase that translates, 'She guards her buildings, manners and laws.' "Of course, the buildings do present a range of styles, but the pervasive typology is that of the single house.  The plan has the narrow end facing the street with a false door which leads to a real front door half way down the side of the house.  This was greatly augmented by about 1800 when the false door became the entryway to a long, often double-height side porch, called a 'piazza' in Charleston.

"We find this floor plan recurring from the Georgian period, through the Adam (Federal) Style, the Greek Revival Style, Victorian styles, etc., but in all of these exotic garbs the floor plan, fenestration and formality remain constant, with only a few elements giving the house a discernable 'style.'  The distinct urbanism created by the repetition of the single house over large areas of the city is an embedded 'sustainable' urban form.  These older blocks provide a syncopated rhythm to the street.

"This 'weathered city' utilized her unique, long-standing architectural layout of houses turned longways into their sites to create a shelter appropriate to the climate.  The piazzas all face south and west, which allows them to catch prevailing breezes and allows for the shading of windows when the sun is high in the summer."  Full article with photos here.

Georgetown, Malaysia shophouses have rich individual facades but "must be seen as group"

From blogger Japheth Lim, an exhaustive post about Georgetown, Malaysia shophouse origins, elements (narrow, deep, attached, facade, 5' way, courtyard, architectural styles), value, and future. "This picture is taken at Chulia Street.  It’s buildings like these light up the unique theme in Georgetown.  It’s because of it’s density that forms the urban fabric that gave me the feeling of the past instead of over commercialized area such as Petaling Street.

"One reason why i love the urban fabric of Georgetown Heritage zone is because chinese shophouses has narrow fronts and deep rears, possibly 5 to 8 times the length of the width.  This gives them minimal space and more focus to decorate the entrance elevation.  Which most of the time it will be done by a 2 or 3 arch windows with horizontal louvers.

"Chinese Shophouses come together as a group.  It’s different compared to Gothic Architecture or Roman Greece Architecture as these architecture suggest focus on a single building with it’s specific elements too.  The unique view of Chinese Shophouses must be seen as a group or a row along the streets as it’s the repetitive elements that suggest a horizontal grid.

"Traditional shophouse facade ornamentation draws inspiration from the Malay, Chinese and European traditions.  European neo-classical motiffs include egg-and-dart mouldings and ionic or corinthian capitals on decorative pillasters.  From the Malay building tradition, elaborate woodwork has been borrowed in the form of carved panels. fascia boards, louvres, screens and fretwork.  Finally, from the Chinese tradition comes mythological motifs like phoenixes."  Full post with photos and images here.

Spiking the football: Benfield says "What if we produce density that overwhelms with scale?"

From Urban Land writer Kaid Benfield: "Those of us who are advocates of smart growth often make our case with numbers: amounts of pollution avoided, dollars saved in infrastructure expenses, acres of land conserved, and so on.  Our opponents don’t do that. They appeal to emotion: do you really want, they ask the public, to live in or amidst tall buildings? "What if we produce urban density that saves land and reduces carbon emissions, but overwhelms people with its scale and looks mediocre?  I’ve argued that so-called smart growth shouldn’t be considered smart if it doesn’t include green buildings and green infrastructure, if it doesn’t show respect to our historic buildings and local culture, if it doesn’t foster public health, if it isn’t equitable.

"Our communities of the future must not only reduce carbon emissions, save land, and encourage use of transit, walking and bicycling.  They must be significantly more dense than sprawl, but also sometimes forego additional increments of density in order to maintain light, limit noise, provide privacy, and respect a human scale."  Full article here.

Spiking the football: Florida says "skyscrapers are vertical suburbs", don't spur innovation

From Atlantic Cities writer Richard Florida (citing McMahon throughout): "The key function of a city is to enable exchange, interaction, and the combination and recombination of people and ideas. When buildings become so massive that street life disappears, they can damp down and limit just this sort of interaction, creating the same isolation that is more commonly associated with sprawl. "Jane Jacobs aptly put it: 'in the absence of a pedestrian scale, density can be big trouble.'  Skyscraper canyons of the sort that are found in many Asian mega-cities, and that are increasingly proposed in great American cities, risk becoming vertical suburbs, whose residents and occupants are less likely to engage frequently and widely with the hurly-burly of city life.

"Stop and think for a moment: What kind of environments spur new innovation, start-ups and high-tech industries?  Can you name one instance, one, of this sort of creative destruction occurring in high-rise office or residential towers, in skyscraper districts?  The answer is no.  High-rise districts typically house either corporate office functions or residences.

"What we need are new measures of density that do not simply count how many people we can physically cram into a space but that accounts for how well the space is utilized, the kinds of interactions it facilitates.  Real interactive density can be better achieved by other means."  Full article here.

Commentary from Better! Cities & Towns writer Robert Steuteville: "Like a preacher in an urban-revival tent, Richard Florida roused the gathering at last week’s 20th Congress for the New Urbanism in West Palm Beach, Florida.  Florida made the provocative point that it is false that density and skyscrapers are the key ingredients to urban vitality and innovation. 'This rush to density, this idea that density creates economic growth,' is wrong, he said. “It’s the creation of real, walkable urban environments that stir the human spirit.  Skyscraper communities are vertical suburbs, where it is lonely at the top.  The kind of density we want is a "Jane Jacobs density."'"  Full article here.

Further commentary from Transit Miami writer Craig Chester: "In her influential book, Death and Life of American Cities (1961), Jacobs objected to neighborhoods that were made up exclusively of high-rises and instead preferred neighborhoods with buildings that are a mix of different building ages and types – Greenwich Village in New York City, for example.  When you consider cities around the world, it is in those types of neighborhoods where you will often find the arts districts, the best music venues, the creatives, the authentic, the local businesses, the innovators, the vitality – and a sense of place and community."  Full post here.  (Photo credit: Flickr user terratrekking.)

Spiking the football: McMahon says "America's finest nabes achieve density without high rises"

From Citiwire writer Edward McMahon: "The problem is that many developers and urban planners have decided that density requires high rises: the taller, the better.  Buildings 20, 40, 60 even 100 stories tall are being proposed and built in low and mid-rise neighborhoods all over the world. All of these projects are justified with the explanation that if density is good, even more density is better. "I will acknowledge that the 'Buck Rogers'-like skylines of cities like Shanghai and Dubai can be thrilling — at a distance.  But at street level they are often dreadful.  The glass and steel towers may be functional, but they seldom move the soul or the traffic as well as more human scale, fine-grained neighborhoods.

"In truth, many of America’s finest and most valuable neighborhoods achieve density without high rises.  Georgetown in Washington, Park Slope in Brooklyn, the Fan in Richmond, and the French Quarter in New Orleans are all compact, walkable, charming — and low rise.  Yet, they are also dense."

"Julie Campoli and Alex MacLean’s book Visualizing Density vividly illustrates that we can achieve tremendous density without high-rises. They point out that before elevators were invented, two- to four- story 'walk-ups' were common in cities and towns throughout America.  Mid-rise buildings ranging from 5 to 12 stories can create even higher density neighborhoods in urban settings, where buildings cover most of the block.

"Today, density is being pursued as an end in itself, rather than as one means to building better cities. According to research by the Preservation Green Lab, fine grained urban fabric -– for example of a type found on Washington’s Capitol Hill, the U Street Corridor, NOMA and similar neighborhoods — is much more likely to foster local entrepreneurship and the creative economy than monolithic office blocks and apartment towers."

"Perhaps cities like Washington, should consider measuring density differently.  Instead of looking at just the quantity of space, they should also consider the 24/7 intensity of use. By this measure, one block of an older neighborhood might include a community theatre, a coffee shop, an art gallery, two restaurants, a bicycle shop, 10 music rehearsal studios, a church, 20 apartments and a couple of bars, and all with much more 24/7 activity and intensity of use than one block of (much taller) office buildings on K Street."  Full article here.

Denver NGO's idea: energy retrofit entire block of small buildings to reduce cost per building

From Atlantic Cities writer Emily Badger: "Single- and multi-family residences are pretty well covered on the energy retrofit market.  At the other end of the built environment exist the Pentagons and the Empire State Buildings of the world, the really big commercial towers and sprawling office complexes.  'Those larger single-owner entities are pretty much a slam dunk,' says Chad Riley, the director of finance and strategy for a Denver-based nonprofit called Living City Block. "But then there is a gaping hole in the middle of the retrofit market. An estimated 95 percent of commercial building owners in the U.S. own small to mid-size properties, buildings of no more than 50,000-100,000 square feet, perhaps with a shop on the ground floor and a handful of offices or rental apartments above. These buildings take up 45 percent of all the commercial square footage in the country, and they consume an equally large share of America’s annual commercial energy use.

"Living City Block’s basic concept is simple. Small buildings rarely have the resources to do a serious retrofit. For most of them, the idea is cost-prohibitive. But what if you combined a small building with 10 more like it? If all of those building owners got together to order high-efficiency water heaters in bulk, or to collectively replace one-thousand windows, could they achieve economies of scale?

"Living City Block is testing this idea on two blocks of the Lower Downtown neighborhood of Denver, with a second site in Brooklyn.  Living City Block is aiming, according to its mission statement, for nothing short of a 'replicable, exportable, scalable and economically viable framework for the resource efficient regeneration of existing cities, one block at a time.'"  Full article here.

Seattle block made up of many narrow buildings has more variety than block-long complex

From Crosscut writers Don Fels and Patricia Tusa Fels: "Density needn’t be a problem.  But instead Seattle has seen poorly thought-through and poorly executed mid-rise buildings in the name of density. "It's not that these buildings house too many people. It’s that the vast majority do so on an inappropriate scale, without imagination, without finesse, and usually without even a nod to what else already exists there.

"Replacing all the buildings on a city block with one giant complex created by one developer, though profit-making, is not the wisest way to grow our urban fabric. Just look at The Joule on Broadway, which takes up an entire city block.

"Directly across the street sits another mixed use six-story apartment complex. The only difference: This structure takes up only a portion of the block. Thanks to the differing scales of buildings on the block, different-sized storefronts have attracted a wider assortment of retailers."  Full article here.

6-story, mixed-use building produces 100x tax revenue per acre of large, single-use building

From Atlantic Cities writer Emily Badger: "An old JCPenney in downtown Asheville, sat vacant for 40 years before Joe Minicozzi’s firm bought and remodeled it.  It's now home to a beauty salon in the basement, retail on the ground floor, offices on the second floor and 19 condos above.  In 1991, the taxable value of this vacant building was just $300,000.  Now, this property that sits on one-fifth of an acre is worth $11 million. "Asheville has a Super Walmart about two-and-a-half miles east of downtown. Its tax value is a whopping $20 million.  But it sits on 34 acres of land.  This means that the Super Walmart yields about $6,500 an acre in property taxes, while that remodeled JCPenney downtown is worth $634,000 in tax revenue per acre.

"'We really are kind of preachy, because we know it works,' says Joe Minicozzi, who has performed similar tax studies in 15 cities across the country [mostly for the Sonoran Institute initiative About Town].  Full article here.

From Better! Cities & Towns writer Robert Steuteville: "An analysis by Joseph Minicozzi of Urban3 in Asheville, North Carolina, shows that on a per-acre basis, dense, mixed-use development far outstrips the value of lower density, single-use development.  In a dozen communities, a shopping mall or strip center produced an average of $7.80 per acre in property taxes.

"By contrast, denser, more urban kinds of development provided much greater financial returns for their communities.  Two-story, mixed-use development generated $53.70 in property taxes per acre.  Three-story mixed-use generated $105.80 in taxes per acre.  Six-story mixed-use was best of all: $415 per acre."  Full article here.

Miami panel discussion to share case study of small-site design and construction, May 18 at 8 AM

30,000 hits...so last week!  From ULI South Florida/Caribbean: "The classic description of urban infill involves multi-story, mixed-use abutting buildings on constrained lots with no side setbacks.  National trends forecast more urban infill, but so far it's been scarce on the Miami scene - until recently with such projects as the Miami Culinary Institute.  Hear from the MCI project team - Miami Dade College, Atkins Architecture and Turner Construction - about the infill challenges, including contextual design, efficient circulation, stormwater management, subcontractor phasing and many more." Panelists will be: Carlos Dougnac, Associate Vice Provost, Facilities Design & Construction, Miami Dade College; Laurence Levis, Senior Group Manager, Architecture, Atkins; and Robert Leyva, Project Manager, and Greg Mahunik, Project Superintendent, Turner.  Event also includes light breakfast and tour of MCI.

When: Friday, May 18, 2012, 8-10am (8-8:30am registration and networking, 8:30-9:15am panel discussion, 9:15-9:30am Q&A, 9:30-10am tour).  Location: Miami Culinary Institute 415 NE 2 Ave, Miami, FL 33132.

Register today and tell your friends, limited to 50 people.  ULI members $20, non $30.  Sponsored by Miami Dade College, Turner Construction, and Atkins, with outreach partners AIA, APA, and Miami Urbanist.

Shophouse ghosts in Bangkok as 2 units are demolished while the rest the of row remains

A throwback to one of my first posts, from Christao blogger Chris: "Each city has its own development  rhythm.  Buildings are constructed then subsequently modified or added on to.  Sometimes the buildings are torn down to make way for newer buildings. In some cities (think Florence, Italy) the rhythm is very slow.  In other cities (Hong Kong!) one can be surprised by how staccato the rhythm is.  Here in Bangkok, it is somewhat in between, though closer to Hong Kong than Florence. "A few weeks ago, I noticed that a pair of shophouses were being demolished.  Interestingly, they are not removing the entire row of identical shophouses, just these two.  I would guess that these shop houses probably date to around the 1960s so they are being replaced within three generations.

"The process took several days and was done largely by hand -- laborers with sledgehammers started at the top of the building and deconstructed it, floor by floor.  The demolition process exposes the intimate way in which the buildings are connected: ghosts of the back stairs can be seen on the wall of the remaining shophouse. "  Full post with photos here.

Philadelphia public housing townhouses' contemporary design has vision, compromises

From Hidden City Philadelphia writer Stephen Stofka: "Wrapping up major construction, and soon to be rented, are the LEED certified Norris Apartments, a low-slung townhouse-and-apartment public housing complex replacing a dreary tower-in-a-park.  On the outside, this ambitious project, designed by Blackney Hayes, is akin to other new examples of highly progressive architecture like Sheridan St., the forthcoming Paseo Verde, and the work of Onion Flats and others in Northern Liberties, Fishtown, and East Kensington. Contrasting with the barracks-like 1960s-era garden apartments of the rest of the complex, the new development offers a vision: the city that could be. "Yet the project’s design undermines key values of green architecture and good urbanism. Market Urbanism’s Steve Smith, then writing at Forbes, points out (correctly) that there is an excessive amount of parking.  (By providing excessive parking here, one public agency – PHA – is undermining another – SEPTA.)  The vestigial front yards are congruent with the rest of the Norris Apartments–the older, garden-barracks project–but out of step with most housing in North Philly, which comes right up to the building line save in the most regal cases."  Full post with photos here.

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam townhouse responds to context, has open plan, and lets in light

From Arch Daily writer Victoria King: "Even in Ho Chi Minh, a chaotic and highly density city, a 3 m wide and 9 m deep plot in a narrow street is still considered as a thorny problem for renovating an old house to a more comfortable and functional space. "Designed by a21 studio, its vertical louvers give distinction but not strangeness to its exterior in comparison with its neighbours.  The ground floor seems to be larger and tidier because of the combination of living room, dinner, and kitchen without any partitions to define the spaces.  The familiar materials such as bricks and steels are used flexibly to add raw feeling to these man-made spaces.

"Moreover, nature is delivered into the house by the introduction of a tree right at the entrance.  The connection between bedroom and bathroom is collection of sparse wooden pieces, which cause flows of light, wind, rain and even human intentions among the house.  This is also the place where the tree meets its need for sunlight."  Full post with images here.  (Photo credit: Hiroyuki Oki.)

Siniawan, Malaysia wooden shophouses endure but renovation could get boost from historic tourism

From New Straits Times writer Dennis Wong: "The Siniawan old town was set up by the Chinese from Bau in 1821.  It went through the Japanese occupation, the Malaysia-Indonesia Confrontation and the communist insurgency. "Despite surviving though the bleakest of times, the town appears not to be as resilient as thought.  The once proud wooden shophouses standing along the main road seem to have lost their battle with time.  Most are derelict and some have been declared as unsafe for occupation.  A shame, as the mid-19th century wooden architecture of the shophouses is unique and has attracted shutterbugs from near and far.

"'The town's facade has changed not one bit. All the shophouses look the same as when I was a child. The shop owners have made only minor changes to the buildings like changing bits of the wooden walls to cement,' said 80-year-old cafe owner Bong Nam Fah.

"Due to the town's rich historical legacy, the state Tourism and Heritage Ministry wants to turn Siniawan into a heritage town.  Assistant minister Datuk Talip Zulpilip said the unique town design and its history should be preserved for the new generation.  If Siniawan is gazetted as a heritage town, it would definitely become a major tourist attraction as it is one of the only few places in Sarawak which has maintained its old building structure and architecture up until today."  Full article here.

Asbury Park, NJ townhouses close to downtown and beach aim to catalyze revitalization

Good to read about some smart redevelopment happening in a city that I visited frequently as a child.  From Asbury Park Press writer Nancy Shields: "The city’s beachfront developer, Asbury Partners, is set to start building 28 townhouses this summer.  The four-story, two- and three-bedroom homes will range between 1,800 and 2,200 square feet, said Brian Cheripka, the vice president of land for iStar and the head of the overall Asbury Park waterfront development.  The four-story townhouses will be located a block from the beach and close to downtown.  The architect is Lessard Design out of Vienna, VA. "Cheripka said the townhouses offer a different residential product than condominiums still on the market that were built before the housing market crashed.  'They’ll serve as an example of what’s to come on the waterfront,' he said. 'The key is bringing the right kind of housing product in at the right time.  Our role is to attract other vertical developers back to the waterfront.  The goal is to create a continuous level of activity across the waterfront.  The hope is people will understand there is a greater degree of certainty and now is the time to move forward.'"  Full article here.  (Photo credit: Tim McCarthy.)

Rowhouse "reign supreme...adaptability to 21st-century lifestyles makes them relevant"

From Houzz writer Bud Dietrich: "From the early 19th century through the early 20th, America's cities grew at a rapid pace.  Immigrants from other countries as well as a migration from farms to city centers fueled this growth.  To accommodate the new urban population, block after block of a type of urban dwelling, the row house, was constructed.  This narrow and tall structure could be built quickly and efficiently and could be single or multifamily depending on neighborhood economics.  Though many of these houses were demolished for new development, there are several neighborhoods where these homes still reign supreme. "In fact, it's the adaptability to our 21st-century lifestyles that makes these houses as relevant today as they were more than a century ago.  These homes are blank canvases that can be what you want.  Large openings between all the rooms allow natural light to permeate the interior.  Now, with new materials and technologies, there's no reason not to have large, expansive skylights to bathe the entire interior with light from above.  And tall ceilings, often 10 feet or more, provide a spaciousness that compensates for the narrow floor plan."  Full post with photos here.

Buffalo, NY tin shop built in 1890 redeveloped into 3 townhouses, each with rental unit

From Buffalo Rising writer Mike Puma:  "Eran Epstein of E Square Capital has wrapped up work on 504 Washington Street. The building has been transformed into three, two-family townhouses.  The three-story brick building was constructed in 1890 to house a tin shop, and later was a furniture store.  By the 1930s, it was known as the Washington Building.  A restaurant occupied the building about a decade ago, while the upper floors remained empty. Epstein purchased the long vacant property in 2006. Designed by Silvestri Architects, the new project was privately developed in conjunction with Long Island-based Chris Gerhart of CWG Development, with the participation of KeyBank.  The primary units are approximately 3,500 sq. ft. with each having a rental property of 1,500 sq. ft.  Each townhouse has its separate entrance and garage with tandem parking on Washington Street."  Full post with photos here, and more photos here.

From Buffalo Business First writer James Fink: "For Epstein, the deal marks the first team he has developed a 'for sale' residential complex instead of one based on rental units.  'Our goal was to offer attractive, affordable townhouses in the heart of downtown’s business and entertainment district, while also bringing back to life a once significant Buffalo building.  We hope it will spur further development efforts by others on that block,' Epstein said."  Full article here.

Small, adaptable buildings enable horizontal mixed-use, not vertical, and higher value

From Place Shakers writer Hazel Borys: "We’ve long valued mixed use as a social condenser.  And those gathering places that grow naturally out of mixing uses produce the highest dollars per square foot in the surrounding neighbourhood – for developers, owners, and cities. "The truth is local markets often don’t support more than 1-story retail right now, so a mixture of horizontal uses within a 5-minute walk still makes for a great place and is easier to finance.  And it allows for smaller developers to take on a few blocks — or a few lots — which is how most great old urbanism was built.  More bullish markets are building 1-story structures strong enough to carry additional stories later.

"The first, most essential tool to enabling incremental development is the lot.  Mixed use developed on a lot-by-lot basis can expand, contract, and repurpose.  Subdivision of lots — instead of large parcel development — was historically one of the greatest generators of wealth. Savvy cities are subdividing small lots again, and removing other zoning barriers like suburban parking requirements.  "  Full post here.  (Photo credit: Victor Dover.)

Berlin's former Building Director writes book on townhouses, the "shape of desire for city life"

From Style Park writer Heinrich Wefing: "It is five years since Hans Stimmann retired as Berlin Municipal Building Director.  The most interesting thing left behind from his era include a type of building that was not invented in Berlin but was massively supported in political and economic terms in the closing years of Stimmann's period: something that billboards told us was a 'townhouse'.  Narrow high houses the likes of which had never really been seen before in Berlin, capital city of the tenement block.  Downtown houses for single families, long-side upwards, all of them four or five storeys high, and each of them a little bit different.  Most of these townhouses are only 6-7 meters wide, but 13-18 meters deep. "Essentially, the concept of townhouses continues a long tradition that dates back to the early days of town planning: a family builds a house for itself in which it lives and works, on a plot of land in the heart of town.  Such houses were the basic building blocks for many European cities, extending from Lombardy through Augsburg to Amsterdam and Lübeck.

"Berlin's townhouse inhabitants are primarily creative minds, freelancers, or well-paid employees.  Among them attorneys and notaries, gallerists, doctors and plenty of architects, who have in part also relocated their offices to behind the facades they designed themselves.  The fact that the developer, user and sometimes the architect, too, are one and the same person or entity forges an identity that fosters identification with the place.

"Evidently this type of building is very much en vogue.  And it is therefore not surprising that Hans Stimmann has now himself brought out a book on it, offering 'planning assistance' as the title declares, an elaborate and beautifully made book full of samples of exemplary townhouses, with photos, ground plans and a section almost 100 pages long with a list of 'building components', that presents porches living rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, stairwells and facades that have been realized.

"The decisive question must be how can one keep the young, high-income couples, most probably with kids, in the city or even persuade them to return and live downtown?  In particular, young women no longer wish to go to seed in suburbia or to spend far too many of their waking hours in gridlocks on the way to or from work, picking the kids up from the childcare center or school, or simply in order to go shopping. And the new silver-agers who have money to spare and lots of lust for life are rediscovering downtown.  That's where their kids live, who have long since moved out of the home in the suburbs, that's where the doctors are, that's where the bookstores and libraries are.

"Should the 'townhouse' actually turn out to be a type of building that provides an appealing architectural shape for the desire for city life, then that would spell real progress. And then Hans Stimmann's manual would be of real benefit to us all."  Full article with stunning images here.

Reader sends 10 principles for little infill, i.e. the buildings that make better urban neighborhoods

Recently I asked readers how they would promote small buildings for better urban neighborhoods.  Sam Newberg, aka Joe Urban, sent his "10 Principles for Little Infill" presentation, which includes eye-catching photos in addition to thoughtful principles:

1. Go to the neighborhood first
2. Work in cities with good codes and cooperation
3. Do the market research
4. Don’t over-retail
5. Activate the public realm
6. Be realistic about parking
7. Retail entrances must be practical
8. Background buildings are OK
9. Find a lender with mixed-use experience
10. Hire a marketing team with sensitivity to the local market

Toronto rowhouses subject of series in major newspaper, from soundproofing to ethnography

Canada's National Post recently did a series of articles on Toronto's small, attached buildings.  Although the series was called "Semi-Detached", articles frequently discussed rowhouses as well as duplexes.  From the series description: "For all the attention paid in recent years to soaring condo towers, it is easy to forget the importance of another of Toronto’s ubiquitous structures: the semi-detached and row house.  There is no shortage of home buyers willing to shell out many hundreds of thousands of dollars to put up with the ambient noise and clashing esthetics." Articles included "The party wall and beyond", "A primer on the semi", "When you share a wall, make sure you talk to your neighbours", "Miss-matched houses show a neighbourhood’s changing ethnic makeup", "Taking the ‘party’ out of your party wall with soundproofing", and "Loving your neighbours as if they were family".

From "Mis-matched houses" writer Peter Kuitenbrouwer: "On Monday afternoon, William Greer, who grew up in Toronto and is among the city’s most noted heritage architects (and has the groovy glasses to prove it) joined me for a stroll on Northcote Avenue.  Northcote has on it perhaps 100 dwellings — single houses, semi-detached houses and row houses — in close to 100 styles.

"Mr. Greer chooses to view the overall results charitably.  'They are modernizing. How do you judge today whether a building is good or bad? Does the building contribute to the heritage value? Well, frankly, each of these buildings contributes to our heritage in its own way.'

"Much of the heart of Toronto consists of semi-detached houses that developers built in the 19th century.  Maps in the archives tell us that builders erected the houses on Northcote between 1884 and 1890. Most conformed to what Mr. Greer called the 'bay and gable' style, with bay windows curving out beside the front doors, and gables on the roof lines.

"The Toronto City Directory for 1912 reveals the ethnic uniformity of Northcote Avenue a century ago.  The ethnic diversity was limited to Harris Goldstein, a shoemaker, and 108 Northcote is labelled 'Chinese lndry.'  'Here you have British immigrants coming and living in a very familiar house-form,”' Mr. Greer says. 'There was conformity and a sense of community.'  Today any number of ethnic groups mingle on Northcote; each brought his own taste."  Full article here.