Gabled Daydreams - Undergraduate Thesis by Connor Brown

GABLED DAYDREAMS Some Additions to American Suburbia

Connor Brown | Undergraduate Thesis | 2022

UNDERGRADUATE THESIS Connor T. Brown Advisor: Aki Ishida Bachelor of Architecture | 2022 Virginia Tech School of Architecture + Design

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work would not be possible without the constant motivation, feedback, and support of My roommates: Tim Cox & Carl Buck, My advisor: Aki Ishida, My parents: Lisa & Tom Brown, My Thesis group: Emma Wierzel, Joon Kang, Kaitlyn Mueller, Hanna O’Connor, Marissa Schacht, Sahar Khoury, Noor Hadi, Yuxin Ren, Daniel Kim, Brendon Glover, Rachel Martinka, Others: Ellie Cuthrell, Mason Millner, Gates Breeden, and all my other friends, family, acquaintances and critics I truly cannot thank you all enough for everything you have done for me. Again, Thank you.

CONTENTS 01 | Understanding Suburbia Abstract Research Precedents Process New Realities Site

02 | Refitting Suburbia Additions

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01 | UNDERSTANDING SUBURBIA

ABSTRACT Suburbia today has proven to be a wasteful model of living. Growing since the start of their mass production in the 1950’s to accommodate the post-war population surge, suburbia has created an automobile reliance and encouraged mass consumption through individualized dwellings. Historically the suburbs have been seen as a “lost cause” but new developments like Seaside, Florida and Radburn, New Jersey attempted to remediate these issues by building entirely new neighborhoods with a focus on walkability and sense of community. While the goals of these neighborhoods were successful, they rely on further sprawl and fail to address the existing suburban landscape which prevails throughout the United States. This thesis aims to intervene into an existing suburban subdivision, constructing new interventions to increase the density of dwellings while incorporating commercial and communal space within walking distance of the home. This includes grocery markets, pharmacies, child-care services, laundry facilities and co-working spaces. How can these services and ideals be incorporated into the existing suburban landscape, to avoid additional resource waste and further sprawl, rather than proposing an entirely new model of living. What architectural elements and ideas can be extracted from single family suburban homes, typically overlooked as having architectural merit, and be elevated to create more dynamic spaces to encourage interactions that are missing in typical suburban neighborhoods. Using an existing suburb in Dallas, Texas, the retrofitted suburb reflects its context and takes advantage of the climate, making a walkable neighborhood feasible year-round.

Research | Foreword

FOREWORD Since their inception, the suburbs as we know them today have been built around the automobile, which has caused them to sprawl farther from city centers. The sprawl of single family homes, which dominates the suburban landscape, uses land wastefully through zoning practices that separate low density housing from retail, commercial and communal space.¹ Because of this, the average suburban home produces 9.4 trips per day, 46% of which are less than three miles, of these trips, 90% are made by car.² In addition, suburban homes have been growing in size since the post-war suburbs of Levittown. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the “Cape Cod”, a home built by Levitt and Sons, was 800 square feet, which was a ranch home with two bedrooms and one bathroom.³ In 2005, the best selling home by Toll Brothers’, one of the largest homebuilders in the United States, was the “Hampton,” which was 4,800 square feet, with four bedrooms, four and a half bathrooms, and a three car garage.⁴ This is among almost four million homes in the United States that are over 4,000 square feet, the square footage of garages alone rivaling the homes of Levittown.⁴ This excessive home size raises questions about expected standards of living and consumerist culture in the United States. This thesis will investigate how density can be increased in suburbia to create more destinations within walking

Loudoun County, VA | 2012

2018

Katy, TX | 2012

2018

The Villages, FL | 2007

2017

land developed for suburban sprawl in the last decade New York Times

Research | Foreword

distance to the home. Referencing Dolores Hayden’s What Would a Non-Sexist City Be Like?, she proposes partitioning an existing 1,400 square foot suburban home into three smaller units.⁵ This proposal from 1980 remains relevant today and in the future as homes continue to grow in square footage. What if the modern suburban home was renovated into multiple smaller units, allowing for different living arrangements that are not designed exclusively for the nuclear family and allow for economic diversity in a typology that is typically homogeneous in price? Smaller units would reduce consumption by reducing storage space, and what were once grand walk-in closets with room for hundreds of articles of clothing could be renovated into entire bedrooms with modest closets. Additionally, the modern phenomenon of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU’s), small residential units located on the lot of another larger unit, is helping to increase density in cities like Los Angeles and is a start to densifying the suburbs. How can this be taken a step further? The Opposite Shore by DOGMA is a project that experiments with these ideas. The project both retrofits and adds onto existing suburban neighborhoods, creating communal space and services and adds residential buildings in interstitial space between backyards. It investigates different architectural ways in which this could be implemented and suggests new typologies.

Deck

Family Room

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Foyer Living Room

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Three Car Garage

“The Cape Cod” Levittown, NY, 1950 800 SQ FT.

“The Hampton” Franklin Lakes, NJ, 2005 4800 SQ FT.

size comparison, Levitt & Sons “Cape Cod” to Toll Brothers “Hampton”

Research | Foreword

The Opposite Shore project asks, as in this thesis, how architecture can intervene to achieve a denser and more communal suburb. In a denser suburb, public transportation becomes more feasible. To support public transit, a minimum density of eight units per acre is required, with the average suburb being about five units per acre.⁶ By converting a single family home into three or more units, the density of the neighborhood would increase to about 18 units per acre, making a light rail or bus with 15 minute frequency possible.⁷ The light rail could be implemented for commuters into the city center, while alternative modes of transportation could be utilized for the “first/last mile”, the route to or from a transit stop to the destination.⁸ For this, bike lanes would be made safer by separating them from automobiles and the light rail, with some streets for pedestrian and bike traffic only. Existing sidewalks would also be expanded for an improved pedestrian experience and to accommodate increased foot traffic. Increasing the density of existing suburbs would slow the wasteful clearing of large swaths of land far from the city center. Implementing public transportation to access the city and encouraging walking or biking shorter distances limits the use of the car and improves residents’ physical health simultaneously. Furthermore, rezoning of low density neighborhoods

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Top | Levittown, NY transportation diagram Bottom | Franklin Lakes, NJ transportation diagram

Research | Foreword

to allow for mixed uses creates more destinations that can be accessed without the car.² By creating a public transportation network and a higher density of housing, the need to own a car is significantly reduced, thus making the garage obsolete. When it is no longer needed to park a car, former garage space could become the perfect venue to incorporate retail or communal space. Some spaces that could occupy former garages include: a communal kitchen, farm stand selling locally grown food, laundry facilities, daycare, or hair salons, among many others. If more small businesses formerly accessed by car could be incorporated into existing neighborhoods, trips that require a car would be reduced. Incorporating public transportation and making a better environment for alternative modes of transportation reduces the 90% of trips under three miles that are made by car and encourages residents to utilize these alternative modes.² The New Urbanist movement sought to create these types of neighborhoods in Seaside and Celebration, Florida, which were focused on walkability and community interaction through small lots and mandating front porches on all homes, among other strategies. The design of these communities obviously showed that cars were secondary by prohibiting garages and establishing a maximum driveway size, if allowed at all. Additionally cars parked on the side of the road

Williston, ND

Minneapolis New York Chicago Salt Lake City Denver

Charlotte Los Angeles Atlanta Phoenix Dallas/Fort Worth Midland, TX

Houston

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Newly developed land, 2009-2019

newly developed land in the U.S. in prior decade New York Times

Research | Foreword

would park on gravel while pedestrians would walk on sidewalks of laid stone, with a simple material change a hierarchy was established. In addition to reducing reliance on private automobiles, this thesis aims to construct new interventions in suburban neighborhoods to increase density of units while adding retail and communal space into neighborhoods. Rather than propose a new model of living completely, the thesis aims to use the existing suburban fabric and improve upon it to avoid additional resource waste and further sprawl. It reduces consumerist culture and reverses the trend of home growth in the United States, encouraging more modest living. It fosters a collective approach to living rather than an individualist one, and to create a lively neighborhood that is community oriented, sustainable, and adaptive incorporating the best aspects of urban and suburban life.

NOTES ¹ Williamson, June, and Ellen Dunham-Jones. 2021. Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. 6-7 ² Williamson and Dunham-Jones, Retrofitting Suburbia, 4 ³ Hayden, Dolores. 2006. “Building the American Way: Public Subsidy, Private Space.” In The Suburb Reader, 273-280. New York, NY: Routledge. 275-276 ⁴ Knox, Paul L. 2008. Metroburbia, USA. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. 80-81 ⁵ Hayden, Dolores. 1980. “What Would a Non-Sexist City Be Like?” Signs 5, no. 3 (Spring): 170-187. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3173814. 183-186 ⁶ Dittmar, Hank, and Gloria Ohland. 2004. The New Transit Town. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. 24-25 ⁷ Dittmar and Ohland, New Transit Town, 38 ⁸ Williamson and Dunham-Jones, Retrofitting Suburbia, 11-12

Precedents | Dolores Hayden

Dolores Hayden’s What Would A Non-Sexist City Be Like? proposes to subdivide existing 1,400 square foot homes into multiple smaller units, as well as collect all of the backyards and redistribute them for public use. The entire interior of the block houses space for a playground, community garden, and other public spaces. Additionally, the garages of the houses become space for public and commercial functions.

Precedents | DOGMA

DOGMA’s The Opposite Shore reorganizes the suburbs by adding inventions in interstitial spaces between houses and adds onto existing houses. The proposal adds both housing units and smaller scale interventions such as bus stops or paving patterns. The project takes a holistic approach to reimagining the suburbs and illustrates how change should be made at all scales to fully improve the suburbs.

Precedents | MVRDV

MVRDV’s Tramhaus Funari adapts abandoned military barracks to create a new housing community. They create a “kit of parts” and taxonomize different living styles and formal moves to create multiple different units that can be deployed across the site. The “kit of parts” is systematized to provide a logic to the placement of each unit type. Each unit had a unique form which references the traditional gable roof.

Process | Levittown

existing condition, Levittown, NY

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proposed addition to same block

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Process | Franklin Lakes

proposed large and small scale additions

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Process | Addition Types

bar building infills existing backyards, Levittown, NY

two large buildings & multitude of smaller buildings infill yard, Franklin Lakes, NJ

Process | Addition Types

formal studies of addition types, Sterling, VA

Process | Suburban Possibilities

The images question how far the suburbs could or should be pushed to achieve density, programmatic diversity, or maintain its appearance. They address how parasitic or polite new interventions in the suburbs should be, if we need to wipe away everything we know about the suburbs and create something completely new, or if we should work within the existing context of the neighborhoods. The images investigate what types of program suburban neighborhoods support and what is in opposition to the goals of the suburbs.

skyscrapers represent most extreme form of densification for residential neighborhoods

Process | Suburban Possibilities

backyard nightclub suggests radical new program that could be added to suburbia

large, continuous basement questions how much of existing landscape should remain unchanged

NEW REALITIES In February 2022, all 13 students in Aki Ishida’s thesis studio organized the exhibit New Realities: Reenvisioning Everyday Architecture in the Cube, an immersive black box theater, at the Moss Arts Center. It utilized projection mapping software as part of an exhibition to reconsider how architecture that people encounter everyday could be improved. The projection mapping software allowed images and video to be projected onto a physical model and background which aided in illustrating the potential of the new neighborhood. The video first featured the existing neighborhood and typical suburban activities then faded to a new neighborhood which was more lively. Movie clips projected onto the model illustrated types of new programs that could be added to the neighborhood like a restaurant, laundry facility, or grocery store, among others.

exhibition poster by Joon Kang

New Realities | Projection Mapping

exhibition setup using Touch Designer for projection mapping

New Realities thesis exhibition at Moss Arts Center

New Realities | Video

still from video of existing neighborhood

still from video of proposed neighborhood

SITE The site for suburban intervention could be anywhere in the United States where there is unrestricted suburban sprawl, nearly identical single family homes, and a pedestrian unfriendly landscape. This project is sited in a suburb in Dallas, Texas, a city whose metropolitan area is the fastest growing in the country and soon expected to be the third largest metropolitan region in the country. (source) The Dallas suburbs are suitable to site a project which seeks to stop sprawl and end the separation between retail and commercial and residential spaces. The site is bounded by four thoroughfares, along which is all of the retail and commercial space. Additionally multifamily apartment complexes exist on this border. The interior of these large “blocks” are winding tree lined roads with solely single family homes. The homes are roughly 3,500 to 5,000 square feet in size and are densely packed into each block. The houses have no front driveway and utilize a rear alley to access the driveway and garage. The alley is lined with tight driveways and constricted by large eight foot privacy fences wrapping small backyards. This rear alley offers lots of potential in a post-automobile society and becomes the main space of inquiry in the project. How could this space be transformed into a pedestrian way and invert the existing public-private relationship of the neighborhood? Furthermore, what is the relationship of the home to backyard to alley if there are no more privacy fences?

Frankford Road

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Site | Existing House Study

The Nubhaus

The Tri-Gable

The Texas Hip

The Symmetrical Slammer

The Roofline Soup

Site | Existing Conditions

Left | existing life-less alley condition with privacy fences Right | front of houses with sidewalk

Left | entrance to long, narrow alley Right | houses spaced very closely, unusable space between

Site | Plan with Additions

neighborhood with new additions

FO R ENR T

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02 | REFITTING SUBURBIA

M A R K E T

ADDITIONS As needs of homeowners change or families grow, the addition can provide necessary space for that change. Rather than leveling the existing neighborhood and building new, here the addition works at the neighborhood scale within the existing fabric of the single family subdivision to add space for new functions. They reflect the need for change in suburban America and seek to inspire residents to want change in their own neighborhoods. Rather than getting in the car to travel to all of their daily needs, what if those things were added into the existing subdivision? The following additions seek to provide this change and suggest what a new suburbia could look like. Guest House Market Daycare Co-Work Bus Stop Observation Chimney Pool Garden Window Stairs

with narrative written by Tim Cox

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GUEST HOUSE The guesthouse connects two houses to each other, sliding into the narrow eight foot space between two houses. The guest house consists of a small kitchenette and living area with a loft above for the bed. The guest house utilizes the bathroom of the existing house adjacent to it and it also has a small covered outdoor patio space. It is used as a temporary dwelling for visitors to the neighborhood functioning as an Airbnb. The form of the guesthouse references the roofs adjacent to it using clerestory windows to allow light to enter. The second floor loft reaches above the roof of the adjacent houses in order to access light and ventilation. The guest house references Accessory Dwelling Units, popular for providing more affordable housing and increasing density of residential areas. The building seeks to be an ADU of sorts, though rather than existing a separate structure, it combines two existing houses.

R FO T N RE

On his typical evening walk (to think, to escape his aging parents, to smoke) he noticed the red sign and turned his head. A thin room was growing in the crack between two much larger houses. It would mean no more Tinder dates in his childhood bedroom at least.

R FO T N RE

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alternating shed roofs peak above existing roof lines

Additions | Guest House

R FO T R EN

She left her bike locked under the overhang of his room on most nights. She felt like the little house was just like him, keeping her warm and safe, kissing her in the doorway before work.

Above | small living room and kitchenette with loft above Left | guest house slots between two houses

MARKET The grocery market connects former garage spaces and adds onto them in the former driveways to create a large space for selling locally grown produce and other grocery essentials. The form of the market takes on the form of garage bays with its articulated plan and uses glass garage doors to create an indoor/outdoor space. The stepping back of the plan makes space on the exterior of a public plaza to sell plants, flowers or Christmas trees in the winter. The interior space remains unfinished further referencing the garage with concrete floors, plywood ceilings and exposed beams. The exterior material façade material is similar to Terrazzo, with shredded bits of old vinyl siding cast into boards, forming a rainscreen on the exterior of the building.

Walking with his daughter between shelves of bright packaging was one of the few times he could get her to talk. Even brooding pre-teens have a preferred kind of peanut butter.

M A R K E T

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cascading bays replicate garage bays

Additions | Market

She had just finished her shift, quickly scanning cans and boxes while a father and daughter argued about the nut allergies of a middle-school love interest. They didn’t end up buying any peanut butter. She left her vest at the cash register, grabbed her groceries, and headed through the back of the store into her living room.

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Above | stepped back plan allows for public plaza in front Left | addition connects two garages for more market space

DAYCARE The daycare can be read as an enlarged fence where two halves of the fence are pulled apart so the fence becomes an occupiable wall. It combines two backyards to create the main play space for the children. The two homeowners would co-own the daycare and serve as the main caretakers of the children. A gradient in the density of boards allows views through the fence into the backyard beyond. Inside of the fence is an outdoor pavilion with smaller round playrooms for indoor play. The fence referencing the existing privacy fences on the site but seeks to be more transparent while still protecting the children’s play space.

They sat in the grass and watched empty swings sway in the wind inside the courtyard. They were waiting for the third member of their trio, and were content to pick at the grass until he came back from his dentist appointment.

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occupiable fence provides indoor play space

Additions | Daycare

He walked his grandson from the bus back to daycare, pointing out especially whimsical cloud formations along the way. Once they were through the gate, the six year old sprinted toward the grass.

Above | gradient in board spacing allows views through fence Left | fence wraps houses to connect two backyards

CO-WORK The co-working space connects two home offices, providing three additional rooms in front of the houses to create a larger work space. The space provides workspace for the changing work culture, with more people working from home by providing space for these people to still work collaboratively and have an office-like environment. The social interactions that occur in a traditional office are facilitated through different types of workspace like lounge seating, individual desks, or conference tables. The co-work space utilizes the existing rooflines of the houses it is attached to, and the space between is infilled with a sawtooth roof, bringing daylight into the workspace. The existing windows of the homes are converted into doorways to allow access to the new rooms created and connect the spaces while still providing some level of privacy. On the exterior of the new rooms, existing window types are enlarged and become oversized to allow more light to enter and provide views out. The facade material is a thin brick veneer which is revealed in sections to reference the non-structural brick found throughout the neighborhood.

He got back home from dropping the twins off at school at around 8:30. He typed drafts of emails while he walked a quarter mile to the nearest co-working space.

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occupiable fence provides indoor play space

Additions | Co-Work

She knew he had a wife and two kids, but he did always choose the desk right next to her, wheeling his chair over to make small talk. At around 2PM she would invite him across the street to her house. She had a coffee maker.

Above | front windows reflect existing windows and become enlarged Left | two home offices combine with four additional rooms

Additions | Bus Stop

The bus stop references the prevalence of dormers in the neighborhood and acts as a stand alone dormer which stretches out to provide coverage for passengers waiting for the bus. It sits in the front lawns of homes among mailboxes and other sidewalk furniture. Clad in scrap vinyl siding, it is meant to utilize pieces of siding that were too small to be used on houses themselves. The stop is part of a bus system, something not typically found within a suburban subdivision. The bus stop and associated bus system questions the need for the car and suggests that other means of transportation are critical to creating a post-automobile suburb.

He liked to sit in the accordion section of the bus, stretching and compressing around each cul-de-sac.

TICKET

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bus stop in front of suburban houses

Additions | Observation Chimney

The observation chimney references the prevalence of chimneys in the neighborhood despite being located in a subtropical climate which makes chimneys unnecessary. The observation chimney attempts to be equally frivolous, scaling up to human size and accommodating a spiral stair inside which leads to a lighthouse-like platform on the top. The chimney allows for unfamiliar views of the suburban landscape, placing the viewer above the roof lines of the houses. It brings an awareness to one’s surroundings and reveals the absurdity of the dense suburb. Additionally, it is a voyeuristic piece of architecture which allows for views of all parts of the neighborhood. The chimney is meant to be a public space for suburbanites as well as visitors.

The two of them wandered towards the slender brick tower. They had climbed it and surveyed the neighborhood on their first date. Years later, they both thought it would be fitting to propose at the same spot.

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chimney fits in between two houses

Additions | Pool Garden

His father had always kept a lively garden, spending hours on his knees in the dirt. He felt close to those memories now, pressing his thumb over the opening in the hose to spray mist across the small, curved plot.

The gardening pool suggests a new use for the private swimming pool which is commonplace throughout the neighborhood. If homeowners are now sharing a few pools rather than each home having its own, the other old pools could become space for community gardens. The old pool is filled with soil and becomes a kidneyshaped vegetable garden. The pool is already placed in the sun as well as close to a water source, making it the perfect place to garden. Once fenced in by a large privacy fence, a short transparent fence takes its place to keep animals out of the crops.

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community garden in former organic shaped pool

Additions | Window Stairs

The window stairs attach to the side of homes in front of the kitchen window. It questions the public-private relationship in the house and makes a once private space become more public. The stairs allow for both children and adults to approach the kitchen window of other homes. The new window box allows things to be passed through the window to foster the sharing of cooking ingredients, tools, or other resources.

There was always something going in or out of the oven at her neighbors house: pies, biscuits, cobbler, custard. She liked to peek in after school, and was often rewarded with a treat to take home.

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window stair at kitchen window

Additions | Lush “Lawn”

The Lush “Lawn” proposes how the front lawn could be reconsidered in the new suburb to avoid wasteful lawn watering. It questions how the lawn could still be a symbol for the suburban home but be less wasteful of resources while still being beautiful. The lawn uses native plants and groundcover, as well as gravel for drainage. The plants used which are native to North Texas are: Sedum, Blue Fescue, Buffalograss, White Oak trees, Pampas Grass, and Rockrose. Planting low-lying ground cover tight against the side of the house helps to preserve soil moisture at the foundation, which is critical in this climate to prevent foundation cracks and other problems related to dry soil. The large White Oak trees with their large canopies shade the lawn to reduce evaporation when the garden is watered and keep the interior of the homes cooler. In the evenings, she talked about plants with the biology professor who lived next door. They compared the vibrancy of color, sizes of leaves, and just how little they spent on water each month.

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new lawn saves water and uses native plant species

CONCLUSION Through the additions created the goal is to create small interventions that drastically change the existing suburban neighborhood. Both through subverting the meaning of the single family home and incorporating program that is typically left out of residential subdivisions, they challenge the meaning of the suburbs and their appearance. The additions are not meant to be singular structures, rather a template that can be deployed at the block scale, subdivision scale, and even entire metropolitan regions. It is meant to be a “kit of parts” as well as inspire residents to produce their own interventions into their own neighborhoods to accommodate the needs of each specific community. As living needs change, the suburbs can adapt and produce an entirely new way of living. What could the social impacts be in an entirely new suburbia?

Gabled Daydreams Some Additions to American Suburbia

Undergraduate Thesis 2022