Environments I. The retrofit of suburbia; D. The suburban house

The majority of America’s dwellings have been built since World War II. The very large majority of those, in turn, are suburban. Early versions of suburban houses were the smallish (by today’s standards), underaccessorized, single-family “American Dream” homes of the ‘50s and ‘60s that today are often considered substandard — even as starter houses. Not only have space expectations risen, the image of what is desirable has evolved. A half century of change now leaves a substantial portion of the postwar housing stock feeling cramped and looking spartan. The postwar suburbs composed of such smallish houses are usually close to employment centers and benefit from short commutes. This makes them prime candidates for the teardown/McMansion replacement syndrome. Teardowns can be criticized from an environmental standpoint, and the simple substitution of bulked-up replacements ignores the question of whether that is a way to grow in the direction of more sophisticated, flexible, desirable neighborhoods. Mere growth in house volume and fanciness is often simply bling-bling and bloat. It is not true urban maturation. A better way is to consider how the succession of house types can be both environmentally superior and a step up along the Transect. The American home’s physical inflation has been due to a now-standard set of features: a larger kitchen and attached family “great room,”a “master suite” with a bedroom that is also an auxiliary living room accompanied by walk-in closets and a grand bathroom, and a proliferation of bathrooms in general. Similarly, the home’s aesthetic inflation is less an evolution of stylistic elements and more a baroque multiplication with an overall engorgement of pretension quotient. Despite progressive renovation, the postwar houses of the inner-ring suburb — the modest Levitt capes and their contemporaries — have been unable to keep up in either size or modishness. There has been a characteristic strategic flaw in the way they have been modified. The problem has been that the additions have been put in the rear. When a kitchen/family room or a master bedroom suite is added, private, useful back yard space is lost, and the usually smaller, existing rooms at the rear of the house are darkened as windows are blocked. Moreover, despite the major investment in construction, the street facade remains unaltered and unfashionably humble. Better strategy The better strategy is to add new space to the front. By rescinding the front yard setback (usually, in the older suburbs, a useless 25 feet), a substantial addition of street frontage becomes possible. Beyond simply augmenting a house’s space, building to the frontage accomplishes a radical transformation of its public, “curb-appeal” facade (besides any other elements, contemporary higher ceilings and larger windows alone make the house look grander). And, the useful rear yard is left intact. What is lost is the bankrupt rusticity of the symbolic front lawn—but reduction of this black hole of time and money is increasingly regarded not as a loss but a relief. Reduction of the front setback also initiates a Transect succession, evolving the T3 (Suburban) zone toward T4 (General Urban). The area becomes not only statistically denser, but more physically urban. This is a different presentation than when McMansions grow larger without a commensurate maturing — like an adult in kid’s clothing. There are variations in this colonization of the former front yard, each with positive collateral consequences. Among them, the setback reduction encourages the absorption of front-loaded parking within a forecourt. This eliminates the display of tarmac “hardscape” and ungaraged cars that more than the vestigially symbolic lawn, in reality forms the image of the American house. u