Description

Urban Intensities deals with housing in the service of creating conditions of urban intensity. The projects used as central examples in each chapter date from about 1990 to the present, with a focus on contemporary circumstances.
[1]
As used here, ‘urban intensity’ is to be understood as a function, simultaneously of density, diversity, and connectivity in clearly urban circumstances. Moreover, it is the interaction among these three properties of urbanity that brings vitality, vigor, and a certain keenness to the reception of a place, or at least this possibility. Not that constant hub-bub is entirely necessary or even desirable for dwelling, which must also have its quieter moments, but some measure of choice in the matter is truly a sine qua non of urban life. More specifically, in this context, ‘density’ refers to dwelling density, although it does not by itself guarantee either dynamism or healthy intensity in a city. Too much can and does result in overcrowding, dilapidation, and eventual urban decay. Too little often leaves dwelling environments entirely bereft of the chance of important kinds of social interaction and association. Density is also sometimes striven for as a good in itself, with various degrees of it enshrined in urban policies, plans, and regulations. Nominally, higher densities, at least up to some point, are often regarded as virtuous in the pursuit, for instance, of aspects of good environmental performance and quality of life. Nevertheless, density is also simply an outcome of a wider entanglement of market forces, regulatory provisions, resource availabilities, locational opportunities, and cultural proclivities.
[2]
That being said, most examples discussed here are either within the bounds of prevailing dwelling density in specific locales or somewhat above those levels, acknowledging, if anything, the virtue of being so, ceteris paribus, from a broader social perspective.

‘Diversity’ in this context is manifested in several ways. First, at the level of specific housing complexes, it refers to the additional magnitude and range of non-residential uses that are included. This appears to be warranted from the standpoint of nearby support of an urban dwelling lifestyle, as well as employment and other local benefits of mixed use at a relatively fine grain of accommodation. In the service of smaller environmental footprints, for instance, there is something to be said in favor of a combination of dwelling density and a local mixing of use. Second, diversity here refers to variety in the different kinds of dwelling units within a specific housing complex and at the same time variety in the provision, or not, of flexibility within those units for accommodating different day-to-day, occasional, or life-cycle aspects of occupation and use. In principle, anyway, various valences or modes of inhabiting dwelling space can be adopted, ranging through bi-polar dimensions like flexible versus specialized occupation, diverse versus repetitious units, and emptied-out versus partitioned spaces. Generally though, recent development in these regards shows a trend towards poly-functional space in place of arrangements of particularized mono-functional spaces.
[3]
Third, diversity seen here on the demand side of housing provision refers to fluctuations and rises, generally, in household formation of different types, pushing the need on the supply side for diversity in unit types, as well as poly-functional arrangements.

In these regards, the First Demographic Transition, as it is referred to, concerns the original decline in fertility and mortality witnessed in Western countries from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries onwards and during the second half of the twentieth century elsewhere in the world. The Second Demographic Transition, by contrast, emerged roughly from the 1960s onwards in well-developed countries. This was sustained by sub-replacement rates of fertility, a multitude of living arrangements, little stationary population, aging effects, rises in divorce rates, declines in remarriage, rising cohabitation and extra-marital fertility, declining household sizes, and rises in individual autonomy alongside weakening social cohesion, especially around traditional families.
[4]
By the 1980s going into the 1990s, all OECD countries, for instance, experienced radical changes in their demographic profiles and living arrangements of their populations. This was particularly marked in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
[5]
Statistics showing the relationship to householder for household population in the United States make much the same point from the 1980s onwards, through fairly dramatic shifts across the board.
[6]
With some recent stabilization, this increased diversity nevertheless seems likely to continue for some time to come. It is also why the turning point of 1990, or thereabouts, was chosen for discussion here of contemporary circumstances.

‘Connectivity’, in this context, refers to two aspects. The first is proximity and ease of access to other parts of a housing complex, including support functions and non-residential uses, but also to the provision of places and occasions for ‘neighboring’ among dwellers in the same residential environment, should that be deemed desirable. Second, it also refers to the manner in which complexes are situated in broader urban contexts, especially with regard to wider transportation access, neighborhood community facilities, stores, public open space amenities, and the like. Again, there is something to be said in favor of an urbanity that virtuously combines dwelling density and social diversity, or their possibilities, alongside of proximity and access to a range of other available forms of discretionary use and amenity as well as employment. Measures of such connectivity can vary, but all involve walkable proximities and numbers, or relative occurrences, of available nearby non-residential activities, as well as to transit, along with the sheer quality of the walking experience itself. This, in turn, argues for a degree of embeddedness in a city, or other urban context, and a scale of embeddedness that is inviting, largely pleasurable, and civic in character.

‘Housing type’ is used variously in accordance with commonplace descriptors with regard to occupancy, massing, and scale, like ‘single-family attached dwelling’; ‘mid-density, low-rise dwelling’; ‘high-density, high-rise housing’, and so on. It also embraces quasi-architectural designations like ‘row houses’, ‘apartment towers’, ‘slab blocks’, and ‘perimeter blocks’, pointing to dominant kinds of buildings in use for housing. Or, it covers descriptors by way of building rise and access, like ‘mid-rise, walk-up buildings’; ‘mid-rise, elevator-served buildings’; ‘high-rise, gallery-access structures’, and so on. At root, ‘type’ here is an abstract shorthand designation of bundles of salient features of housing, with regard to discriminable artifactual qualities around which numerous examples congeal separately from other groupings. In short, ‘housing types’ and ‘typal qualities’ are broadly recognizable and generally agreed upon without too much confusion. ‘Territory’ is used here in two senses. The first refers to a particular physical context, environment, or kind of property circumstance like urban blocks, superblocks, or sites of former infrastructural engagements such as railroads or port facilities. The second refers to a particular sphere of action, as in conserving indigenous characteristics in housing or taking care of a particular population. Also at work is the premise that territories, in both senses of the term, are shaped by housing insofar as housing contributes to the making of a particular territory, as in the shaping of urban blocks and the making of submultiple or infill arrangements. Conversely, territories are also seen to shape housing in, for instance, the occurrence of tall buildings in places with high land values, or through both the opportunities and constraints presented by so-called brownfield sites such as those once used for infrastructural developments. More important here, however, given the primary focus on ‘urban intensity’, is the twinning of the two forms of terminology and the combination of both housing types and territories. This, in turn and in effect, provides a certain focus or specific emphasis to the examples of housing under discussion in each category. For more on these definitions, please see “A Turning Point and the accompanying graphs.

”Urban Block Shapers”, for example, engages with low-to-mid-rise buildings, mostly comprised of housing, deployed in the service of inscribing or otherwise making distinct urban blocks within cities. By contrast, “Indigenous Reinterpretations” is about forms of housing that attempt to reify local, time-honored layouts and expressive manners of building in otherwise contemporary urban circumstances. Such categories, however, are often far from being exclusionary. There are, for example, rather obvious overlaps among them. The Byker Wall in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, for instance, was originally about the accommodation of infrastructure but now is also a ‘big building’ and something of a ‘submultiple’ in the language of this volume. Likewise, the superquadra of Brasilia can be viewed as “Superblock Configurations” and as “Housing and Landscapes”. Indeed, in many of the more complex project examples, several categories of ‘type’ and ‘territory’ are invariably engaged. After all, urban intensity can and must mirror a wide array and ensemble of building and contextual or territorial circumstances, ambiences, and emphases.

What follows are nine categories, each dealing with a particular typal and territorial category:

Urban Block Shapers

Housing and Landscapes

Superblock Configurations

Tall Towers

Big Buildings

Infrastructural Engagements

Indigenous Reinterpretations

Infill and Puntal Interventions

Housing Special Populations

This is by no means intended to be an exhaustive list of such regimes but rather one that captures important aspects and directions in contemporary housing. Examples are drawn from different cultural settings with emphasis on Europe, North America, and East Asia, although also including Latin America, North Africa, and the Middle East. The centerpieces of each chapter are several contemporary projects. Also incorporated, however, are discussions of earlier precedents and concepts pertinent to a particular category of housing. The periods of these precedents vary. For instance, in discussing infill projects, the row houses of several American cities date back into the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Big buildings as submultiples, by contrast, are largely post-World War II phenomena. Tall towers, to take a third example, date essentially from the early twentieth century for housing use, while housing of special populations, to take yet another example, dates well back into the nineteenth century with almshouses and the like. In all, 28 specific contemporary projects are discussed in some detail, within the more general discussion ranging over some 100 examples. Graphic presentation, beyond photographic images, consists of contextual depictions of the central case studies emphasizing various urban dimensions, followed by data sheets for each that depict critical dimensional qualities, the diversity of unit types, alongside of typical household formations and mixing of other uses. Internal arrangements within the projects, emphasizing various aspects of functionality, openness, pre-determination in layout, and so on, are also included. Finally, a concluding chapter re-addresses the issue of urban intensity more generally and across all the examples discussed. Presentation is also made of other metrics such as density to building rise, and diversity in functional use. The claim that contemporary urban housing, seen generally since 1990 or thereabouts, follows and embodies a turning point in its form, appearance, and urban disposition is also taken up in the affirmative. This is done through both an examination and discussion of prevalent trends in contemporary housing seen against more constant features, as well as in an empirically analytical manner using the three measures of urban intensity.

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Originally published in: Peter G. Rowe, Har Ye Kan, Urban Intensities: Contemporary Housing Types and Territories, Birkhäuser, 2014.