It's Time To Redesign The Suburbs

In the traditional suburban development you subdivide your land into lots and put each house in the center of the lot. The front yard is for show only while the side yards are usually unused areas. The back yard gets a small deck often without much privacy. A photo from Pixaby.com illustrates this very well:

This configuration is largely an accident of history. When developers first began to build suburban developments in the 19th century they had the idea to market them as feudal estates. The first was called Lewellyn Park in New Jersey. Thomas Edison had a huge house there called Glenmont modeled on the Queen Anne style of Richard Norman Shaw. Lewellyn Park became the template for all American suburban housing to follow: A grand manorial home with huge front lawn perched on a vast landscaped lot. As Americans grew wealthier more and more people could afford such homes albeit on smaller and smaller plots, so that by today we have the situation illustrated in the Pixaby photo above.

Now the garage is a carryover from the days of the horse and buggy when both were kept inside. The front lawn comes down to us from the first manorial suburban estates. The backyard is a consequence of municipal setback rules.

Frank Lloyd Wright pointed out that modern cars need only a carport. Front lawns simply subtract from the available living space in the backyard. Backyards are often little used as they often have very little privacy again well illustrated in the Pixaby photo.

VRT proposes a sweeping overhaul of this outmoded scheme for the suburbs: Pull the house close to the street with pleasantly landscaped sidewalk. Replace the garage with a carport which doubles as an elevated outdoor terrace. Replace low backyard and side yard fences with high, roofed, storage and utility space which creates a private rear courtyard for pleasant outdoor living.

As well the idea of carefully separated formal and informal space comes down to us from the manorial estate. Wright was the first to break with this convention giving a house one large open dining area and one large open living area in place of multiple small duplicate areas. Strangely enough even in the most modern houses one can still find multiple dining and living areas ableit designed more along the open plan. VRT adopts Wright's scheme for single, large, open plan living space as well as diminished bedroom space. Unless one has the resources for extravagantly large bedroom and closets, VRT believes money should be spent where people are going to spend their waking hours.