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Like what we drive, where and how we live reflects our lifestyles and stages. The needs of each stage differ and require varied physical accommodations that are life stage appropriate. Individuals and households are in constant motion, moving from one stage to the next; some steps just last longer than others. This “circle of life” repeats itself with every successive generation such as Gens X, Y, and Z. About every 14-18 years the cycle begins again. Because cycles overlap, we always have all stages to comprehend and design for simultaneously.

Starting out with limited means, it may make perfect sense to dwell in a micro unit in an urban core, close to transit and the attractions that make this life stage so much fun. One might choose a suite in a themed urban co-living building, which in addition to its affordable rent, comes with built-in community. From here, life often leads one into a special relationship that progresses to a partnership, which forms a new household, often followed by offspring, which represent yet another kind of family unit. Ultimately the offspring leaves the nest, which one might hope, resulting in a new life stage which resembles a previous one, but with more resources! Many folks arrive at this mature stage, and, romancing the memories of a previous cosmopolitan life, downsize back to an urban loft. And so, the cycle repeats.

The nuances of how to appeal to each life stage adjust with changing times, and the evolution is subtle. To stay abreast of the morphing norms is the task of the residential designer, as augmented by marketing research and by paying critical attention to the broader culture. Designing in all housing genres simultaneously creates an imperative to not only stay abreast of the needs of the various life stages, but also to encourage cross pollination from one type to another, understanding the specific product distinctions.

Approximately 65% of Americans occupy single family houses; there are a billion variants of these homes, including size, appointments, and proximity to neighbors and a town center. A detached home is prized for its desirable qualities—it gets light from all sides, usually includes some kind of yard or other private outdoor open space and has a distinct sense of autonomy. As resources are more abundant, these properties become larger and farther apart. Projects on the high end of this spectrum stretch the design team to embrace the perks that luxury affords—which means spending a lot of time in possibility thinking, the inventions of which can be re-interpreted and applied to all types.

Recently we have seen the advent of smaller, more closely spaced single family homes, which appeal to first time buyers, especially when money is cheap and there’s a pandemic to escape. The production pace of this type of dwelling was blistering in 2020 and has accommodated many younger families searching for the sublime combination of ownership along with a yard for the puppy and kids. Forecasters are predicting the boom will continue at least through 2021. These houses, particularly if they are only two stories, are about the least expensive construction there is. Design thinking in this context is a vastly different enterprise than with luxury product—in these smaller, more value priced homes, everything must be considered with a great sensitivity to the bottom line, so simplicity and efficiency become very key drivers.

With the advent of Accessible Dwelling unit laws in California and other states, experimentation and invention in the single family space has really accelerated. Introducing a “granny flat” into a new build detached house doubles the density of the neighborhood, provides attainable housing opportunities, and creates a mini “circle of life” situation where the residents of the primary house and the ADU (assuming all are extended family members) may swap spaces over a long period of time. These new ground-up homes with built-in ADUs are a gateway to multifamily housing.

Multifamily communities, especially 2- and 3-story wood-framed walkup apartments, have been hot in the suburbs and exurbs, because they are the most affordable homes to construct, and the value of the underlying land is typically less. The fire has been fueled by the recent exodus from dense urban cores. As is the case with single family homes, there is a broad range of product types in this category, driven by the desires of target residents. Some people live in these properties for a very long time; others are merely passing through on their way to ownership of a single family home!

Because the amenities in a low-rise multifamily community are shared, great care must be taken by the design team to incorporate elements that specifically appeal to the anticipated residents. With the recent surge of working from home, and the ability to have an abundance of goods and services delivered directly to our dwelling, the traditional community clubhouse needed to be reconsidered. Today’s “resident services hub” reflects the “live/work/play” lifestyle of its residents by having at its core the spaces and services that support working from home—like an alternate place to work when one needs a break from her apartment or to gather with other WFH colleagues, and a place to enjoy with friends all the stuff that’s being delivered. Think about food and beverage trucks or traveling entertainment, all which would satisfy one’s needs.

The big dogs in multifamily properties are those with structured parking: “wraps,” podiums, and high rises. While these communities accommodate a much higher number of persons per net land area, they are the most expensive type to build and are typically located in proximity to an urban core, making the land base more expensive. As a result, they tend toward “luxury” product and command higher rents or sales prices in the event of condominiums. These communities are vertical in nature, with residents living much closer to one another, so random encounters and shared experiences become a desirable aspect of life, as do the thoughtfully planned common spaces in the building, which are evolving in the same way as the suburban “clubhouses”. Relationship of the property to its cultural context is also critically important because many residents spend more time outside their flats than in them, as they take full advantage of the perks their neighborhood offers. Because the cost of these projects is so high, efficiency in plan and skin is a perpetual driver of the design team’s solutions.

So many different conditions, yet with so many elements in common—all influencing one another! The driving intention for all residential design is to create as much comfort and value as possible for a resident relative to what she can afford. Designing tight spaces, such as the micro unit previously mentioned, refines the team’s ability to make the most strategic use of every available square inch of area, wasting nothing, which becomes a strategy applicable to the entire spectrum of homes. Imagining day to day experiences in the dense urban core is quite different than anticipating open space, trails, and rambling amenities in a suburban walk-up location or single family neighborhood, together with the shared spaces, both interior and exterior, that provide seamless transitions from one to the other. What is learned from one experience always helps lead and refine the others.

Today we find ourselves in the situation where the demand for housing has outpaced production for such an extended period of time, making the resultant deficit of homes feel nearly insurmountable. In this environment, it is simply necessary to have more housing, of all types, everywhere it can reasonably go. There is no one product that will on its own make a dent in the deficit; we need more of everything, and an industry energized to imaginatively and intentionally design and deliver it.

Danielian Associates has more than 50 years of residential experience, both domestic and international, that has covered the entire range of residential types from single family detached to high rise, plus the common spaces that support them. In all those years, and in all those products, we have learned the basics of the types, but even more importantly, to listen to our clients and understand which approaches work best for the project in mind.

                                                                        

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Can we agree we’re way past debating that at least here in California, we need to produce a lot more housing than we’ve been doing?  Great.  So where do we put it?  It has been acceptable for a long time to make room for denser communities where there’s convenient access to meaningful transit and close to urban cores, thanks to state bonus density laws and more locally relevant ordinances, such as the Transit Oriented Communities Overlay in Los Angeles.  But what we really need is an “all in, all the time” strategy to creatively find as many places as possible to locate new dwellings, urban and suburban.  So it’s time to prospect for possibilities everywhere, including existing neighborhoods.

ADUs Are Coming!

The tide is turning for at least a part of this challenge.  It has been said that “The single greatest source of real estate for the production of new attainable dwelling units in Los Angeles is back yards.”  This has been verified by multiple studies.  A few years back California passed laws making the production of accessory dwelling units much easier by relaxing regulations concerning rental restrictions, parking requirements, and even setbacks in some cases.  What had been a bit of a cottage industry (please forgive the pun) got an adrenaline injection and really caught fire.  As noted by Dan Bertolet and Nisma Gabobe of the Sightline Institute, “Prior to 2017, Los Angeles was permitting 100 to 200 ADUs per year. In 2017, ADU permits leaped to 2,326, and then in 2018 they nearly doubled to 4,171, accounting for one fifth of all permits. In contrast, in the years before 2017, ADU permits comprised a mere 1 percent of the total.”  By default, these dwellings tend to be more attainable because they are small, they don’t require much, if any, upgraded infrastructure, and they are not amenitized.  They are typically starter or transition homes, for sure.  And they have the very obvious benefit of significantly increasing the density of existing neighborhoods.

. . . But Hold On Just A Minute There

Densifying existing single family neighborhoods?  Them’s fightin’ words.  We love our existing neighborhoods, and we’re highly organized, well-funded, and super vocal, and a substantial voting block to boot, so you don’t want to tangle with us.  While we agree in principle that more housing is needed, when the rubber hits the road, we don’t want it in our backyards.  Or down the block.  Or in the neighborhood at all: “Please build more housing, just not here.”  And this resistance is on top of the already excessive regulation and abuse of environmental law (in California) that hampers the production of housing almost everywhere.

But to walk for a moment in the shoes of the NIMBYs, they often express completely valid concerns; it is entirely possible and logical that some existing single family neighborhoods are not perfect candidates for the addition of a slew of new ADUs.  But plenty are—we just have to be discerning to seek and find them.

In the meanwhile, of course, with the laws in place, it is possible and beneficial to build new houses that come with ADUs already in place.  Beyond the most obvious advantage of providing more attainable dwellings, ADUs have other distinct benefits for owners of the homes to which they are attached (or detached, as the case may be), including income to help the primary owner afford the mortgage, or the opportunity to expand the household to include an extended family over successive generations (initially occupied by the owner’s aging parent, moving to a boomerang kid or newly minted young family, until they take over the main house and the original owner moves to the ADU.  The possibilities are endless.)  When designed into a new master planned community or development, there are often no adjacent neighborhoods to disrupt.

Densifying SFD Neighborhoods

For years, planners, builders, and architects have been reaching for higher densities within single family developments, with 20 DU or more being the holy grail.  We’ve come close with products such as 3 story “detached townhomes,” or progressive designs that park less than might be expected, and don’t build bedrooms for cars.  But imagine if in the same footprint as a traditional 3-story townhome (with parking), we could develop a townhome over flat combo, each with its own separate entry, with the flat playing the role of the ADU in this situation.  That would immediately double the density of the neighborhood, while still parking 2 cars for the townhome and one for the flat—it’s an attached condition that feels detached.  And the community would still have the look and feel of a modern single family development.  With the current market proliferation of single family rentals, this type of stacked duplex would feel right at home.

Villages, Not Tracts

With tools like these at our disposal, it’s time to evolve our thinking about lower density residential planning to embrace the concept of villages rather than tracts.  Denser single family neighborhoods, including those with built-in ADUs, are plotted alongside a variety of attached dwelling concepts, offering a range of price points to attract a broader mix of families; these are adjacent to appropriately scaled walk-up apartments, which is yet another price point on the attainability scale.  In a village concept, there are pockets of amenities and open space distributed throughout which are shared and enjoyed by all residents.  This type of village, with denser enclaves of dwellings interspersed with green spaces becomes a highly walkable environment when the pedestrian realm is thoughtfully enhanced, in sharp contrast to traditional suburban neighborhoods with vast tracts of detached homes with long driveways and fewer attractions to comfortably walk to.  A denser village community is, well, communal by nature, and completely in keeping with the typically younger demographic moving into them.

We need more of everything, everywhere.  Each little creative, careful incremental step forward will help us inch towards a state with enough housing for everyone.  Let’s work together to find ways to say “Yes.”

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*Original article was written by Daniel Gehman, AIA, LEED AP, for and published in the MFE 2020 Concept Community Report

As we endure this unprecedented global pandemic we have all been in a season of mental reframing—adjusting expectations, strategies, and anticipated outcomes. By the time you read this, I hope the dust will be settling on the qualities and characteristics of life that best provide meaning and definition. With everything still fluid as we struggle to arrive at the “new normal,” I want to seize the moment and suggest we consider altering our expectations of what is beautiful in housing. Gen Z is a generation coming of age and entering the household formation years having been branded not only by this crisis but possibly by their parents’ experience in the Great Recession. This generation has been described as motivated by a heightened sense of pragmatism coupled with “ethical consumption” and a search for “truth.” What will this mean when it comes to their choice in housing, especially from an aesthetics perspective?

Personal pragmatism in action can be characterized by a desire to balance one’s expenses, not over-reaching for either status or luxury before they can be afforded. Partnered with this mindset is often a conviction not to consume more than what is needed, but to understand, without pretense, exactly what it is they will be getting for their money.

When “beauty” and “housing” are mentioned together, most of our minds turn to cosmetic or distinctly surface is-sues. We know that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” but it has also been said that “beauty is only skin deep.” What if the holistic understanding of beauty was expanded beyond mere packaging?

Dictionary.com defines beauty as: “The quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest).

“Beauty” in architecture is a wildly subjective topic. There are voices in our industry that pursue “harmony” or “compatibility” of a proposed structure within its given context as if it were the highest imaginable objective. This often gives rise to design solutions, in the quest for community/agency approvals, that unnecessarily complicate the envelope (through excessive ornamentation, geometric modulation, or both), increasing the cost of the building, which in turn raises the rent.

There is also a “keeping up with the Joneses” phenomenon in multifamily that suggests a project’s amenity offerings must be over the top in order to be competitive. But what if I don’t need or ever plan to enjoy a bowling lane or climbing wall? If I don’t use it, I still have to pay for it, along with everyone else in the community, and, again, the rent climbs.

What if we shifted the lens of our mental cameras to view the values of simplicity, commodity, functionality, and an agreeable atmosphere as beautiful? Over 2,000 years ago Vitruvius, the Roman architect, engineer, and soldier, argued for the beauty of simple but pure forms and pleasing proportionality, suggesting that abundant ornamentation was superfluous or even distracting. He also valued “functionality” (or “commodity”) along with strength and beauty. In fact, in his well-known statement of what defined quality building design, “commodity” precedes firmness or delight, so maybe he was on to something in his order-ing of priorities by putting usefulness upfront.

In a search for a home that fits, could focus on a dwelling that provides what one needs without pro-viding (and charging for) things one does not need be of high importance to a Gen Z? What if a developer, propelled by passion, intention, and discipline, deliberately chose to pursue functionality first, including only the most necessary components of functional, comfortable living to deliver homes in the most efficient manner that cost less to rent, accommodating many more households? What if being disciplined in every aspect of the community design and construction could allow this type of development to be done while still making a modest profit, without subsidy? Wouldn’t making housing for many more people pro-vide a deep satisfaction to the mind? What if all this disruption by the pandemic and its lingering impacts caused this kind of thinking to lead to a huge increase in the amount of housing being created that is attainable for many at manageable costs? Now that would be a thing of beauty.