Indeed it is an aesthetic question. In particular, the aesthetics of the public realm. What is it like to go for a walk? What are the sensory and emotional textures between here and the cafe, or the grocery store? Too often, the context surrounding a single family home is something designed to be punched through as quickly as possible by…
Indeed it is an aesthetic question. In particular, the aesthetics of the public realm. What is it like to go for a walk? What are the sensory and emotional textures between here and the cafe, or the grocery store? Too often, the context surrounding a single family home is something designed to be punched through as quickly as possible by a car, rather than something to be luxuriated in by a pedestrian.
Apartments also exist in these soulless places, of course, but the housing stock in pleasant public realms is almost all multifamily.
I traded the faux rural idyll of my youth (really just staring at screens, driving between various snowy parking lots, punctuated by 2 months of glorious hikes) for a small old house in a city of ill repute. My parents couldn't believe anyone used to live cramped together in houses so small, only one place for a tv! Yesterday I played Bocce in the park, and other friends happed to pass by and we walked to a pub for a chat after the game. Full, we passed it by for another we liked even better. All day I never crossed more than a one lane road. On the walk home I got ice cream and ate it while I looked at my doomed blueberry bush, which flowers heavily and never produces a single fruit, smoking my pipe in hobbitish delight. Why anyone used to live cramped together in houses so small, only one place for a tv!
Indeed it is an aesthetic question. In particular, the aesthetics of the public realm. What is it like to go for a walk? What are the sensory and emotional textures between here and the cafe, or the grocery store? Too often, the context surrounding a single family home is something designed to be punched through as quickly as possible by a car, rather than something to be luxuriated in by a pedestrian.
Apartments also exist in these soulless places, of course, but the housing stock in pleasant public realms is almost all multifamily.
I traded the faux rural idyll of my youth (really just staring at screens, driving between various snowy parking lots, punctuated by 2 months of glorious hikes) for a small old house in a city of ill repute. My parents couldn't believe anyone used to live cramped together in houses so small, only one place for a tv! Yesterday I played Bocce in the park, and other friends happed to pass by and we walked to a pub for a chat after the game. Full, we passed it by for another we liked even better. All day I never crossed more than a one lane road. On the walk home I got ice cream and ate it while I looked at my doomed blueberry bush, which flowers heavily and never produces a single fruit, smoking my pipe in hobbitish delight. Why anyone used to live cramped together in houses so small, only one place for a tv!