The necessity of adjustments Alley and garage variations

Every component of urbanism possesses both technical and social dimensions. While there are always good reasons for a traditional component or relationship of components to assume a standard form, there are also times when some widespread alteration of social circumstance licenses, indeed demands, technical reinvention.
For example, some household areas in earlier generations were judged, however stereotypically, to be the natural turf of adult males. Today they are often endangered spaces, either becoming extraterritorial or vanishing altogether. The pressures come both from within — changes resulting from the shift from one wage earner to two, and consequent reallocation of conventional responsibilities; and from without — misdirected ordinances or utopian homeowner association rules which try to banish activities judged detrimental to values. The male territories of garage and driveway, now under social pressure to be cleaned up, are good candidates for support by urban technical invention.
Where alleys are present and lot widths allow, areas that are home to the “toys” of adult American males can be made both more useful to their own purposes and less noxious to others. Adjusting the traditional relationship of alley to garage is a simultaneous exercise in technics and sociology. (The 30-foot distance from garage door to garage door, common today because of vehicle bloat and driver ineptitude, is such a waste of land that it demands reconsideration of alley-garage conventions in any case.)

variations on alley space
By shifting relations among alley, apron, and garage doors, the crude 30-foot corridor of space between garages may be reallocated into more usefully specialized pockets. Three variations will serve to demonstrate how the exercise can work.
The first variation (top image) is possible when a lot is wider than 50 feet. A double garage may then be entered by a sideslip maneuver. A court is created for play and shop activities, the equipment for which need not be moved out of the way for alley traffic. In this case, the alley travel lane may be reduced to 12 feet wide since there is no cross-alley backup required — resulting in a de facto lengthening of the lot’s depth. The space may be used, in addition, for parking larger “toys” such as RVs and boats.
In H-alley and T-alley blocks, the turn at the junction of the two alley segments is often tight. Diagonalizing the garages closest to it allows easier vehicular through passage and more back-out space for those garages. This variant (middle image), while useful technically, also produces an enlarged social space shared by garage owners with others using the alley.

creating a parking court
A third, still more radically communal variant (bottom image) is to dead-end the alley’s vehicular use at mid-block with a hammerhead parking court formed by several male-space garages or work buildings. (A pedestrian passage should continue through.) Not a private court socially even if private legally, this area would be better for being jointly used by the residents of its end of the block. It lends itself, too, to becoming a paved ball court for basketball, kickball, and other games. In the absence of through traffic and probable presence of multiple-adult supervision (those working in the garages), it is a better playground for younger children than the conventional accident-prone suburban garage apron.
Gendering of space, in both covert and overt ways, is ubiquitous among human beings.  Awareness of that propensity, and the willingness to adjust urban conventions in light of it, adds not necessarily to a planner’s political correctness, but to his or her subtlety and effectiveness.

Copyright © 2006 Andres Duany, Michael Morrissey, and Patrick Pinnell. Libraries, universities, institutions, and businesses may not circulate, hire, print, use as a teaching aid, or reproduce this article and/or images without the prior written permission of the authors.��