Beyond Sprawl: Part Three

[marmar]

from the Next American City blog:




Beyond Sprawl: Part Three
Karl Magi | Jan 7th, 2011 |



A “slow home.”


Look at many large North American cities and you see a sea of suburban houses. Sprawl has become the norm. But it is costly, damages the environment and affects quality of life. A new generation of planners and architects is beginning to look at sustainable, human-centered solutions to the creeping suburbs.

There are several reasons for the rise of the suburbs. The planning structures put in place after World War II encouraged the construction of low-density neighborhoods. Low gas prices created a car-dependent culture. And most developers are resistant to changing the paradigm of the suburbs because it has worked for them.

The four architects profiled in this series offer their own analyses of how North America has come to face this situation, and how it might be solved. To see the first article in this series, click here. For part two, click here.

An architect with a vision of revitalizing inner cities and building “slow” homes rather than cookie-cutter suburban boxes is John Brown of housebrand. The firm is based in Calgary, Alberta, and focuses on building residential homes following slow home principles.

Brown explains that housebrand’s “slow home” philosophy was inspired by the slow food movement. He terms the houses built in the suburbs as “fast homes” and explains that like fast food, these homes are “bad for you, standardized and designed to be sold for the profitability of a big industry rather than the quality of what it is.”

The suburbs, according to Brown, have proliferated for two main reasons. “They never changed their greenfield growth pattern and kept on expanding out so the model didn’t change,” he says, “And big business saw this as an opportunity and they started to prey on people’s need for food and home, which are deep psychological needs.”

To counter these issues, Brown explains that housebrand’s slow-home philosophy embraces two major principles. “The home needs to be simple to live in and light on the environment,” he says. “Simple to live in means it works the way it should, it doesn’t have rooms you don’t need or awkward geometries that catch your eye when you walk into the show home but are impossible to furnish.” ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://americancity.org/buzz/entry/2829/