10 Architectural Sins Committed

in Suburbia

1. A Lack of Architectural Variety

One of the first things that comes to mind when
thinking about suburban housing developments
pertains to the diversity — or lack of it — in the
architectural language of mass-produced homes,
sometimes referred to as “tract housing” in the
United States and Canada. Commercial developers
and their architects are all too often guilty of
colluding to create cut-price “cookie cutter” houses,
reusing templates of previously designed buildings
to produce residential landscapes characterized by
monotony.
Extreme examples of such copy-paste architecture
can be found in China and on the outskirts
of Mexico City, but examples can also be found
across the U.K. and the USA, where commercial
motives have meant that “place making” drops
further and further down the priority list.
2. Contrived Architectural Variety
The counterpart to a lack of variety is forced
variety. Wary of being hit with the above
accusation, some developers advocate a mixed bag
of materials, roof styles, porches and window
details to provide a sense of architectural diversity.
The problem is, these variations are all applied to
the same “cookie cutter” templates as before, and
the resulting aesthetic is incoherent and overly
busy. Unlike the true variety of forms and styles
present in older cities — where new buildings have
been added over long periods of time — this lack of
continuity lacks integrity. It is fake. Which leads us
to my next point …
3. Pastiche Detailing
Pale imitations of styles or periods from the 19th
and early 20th century litter the suburbs of both
Europe and America. Superficial odes to the past
are everywhere — false chimney stacks,
superfluous columns and even dainty turrets can be
found in high numbers, enough to make Mies van
der Rohe and Le Corbusier turn in their graves. The
other issue with these faux period details is that, all
too often, developers want the look without the
cost, which results in architects being coerced into
specifying cheap materials that mimic the solid,
well-built houses of old. One material in particular
springs to mind, and that is …
4. GRP (Glass Reinforced Plastic)
The widespread use of glass reinforced plastic
(otherwise known as GRP) is great for developers’
wallets, but not for the quality of the mass-
produced houses they construct. The prevalence of
this deceptive material is not all the fault of the
clients or their architects: Much of that lies at the
door of planning restrictions, which often dictate
that buildings must include redundant components
such as chimneys in order to be permitted.
The solution is provided by manufacturers such
as Storm King, and while their chimneys, porch
roofs and faux-classical columns are of a
reasonable quality, they are ultimately still plastic
— a material which is bad for the environment and
possesses a highly questionable architectural
lifespan. GRP has not been around for 100 years
yet, so it remains to be seen how the material truly
ages. However, my bet is that it does not stand up
to the elements quite as well as good, old-fashioned
bricks and mortar.
5. Low-Quality Open Spaces
Further problems can be seen throughout the public
realm of many housing developments, often as a
result of planning regulations that were brought in
with good intentions but which are translated into a
dysfunctional reality. Public open spaces are a
perfect example.
A set amount of square footage within each
development is required to contain open green
space and, depending on the scale of the project,
obligatory play apparatus may be included. The
problem is, these are not profitable for developers,
so they are viewed as a nuisance and are shoved
into corners and out of the way wherever possible.
The result? Desolate strips of grass and pitiful
landscaping that is never used by the residents it
was intended for.
6. Car-Dominated Developments
Car ownership is as high as ever across Europe and
the United States, with roads and parking
dominating the suburban landscape on both sides of
the Atlantic. Planning authorities have taken steps
to prioritize pedestrians over cars in urban areas,
but on the outskirts of cities, our continual reliance
on personal vehicles undermines this mission.
A huge amount of space in housing developments
is therefore taken up by garages, rear alleyways,
roads and additional parking spaces, to the point
where almost half of space within developments are
made up of hard standing in one form or another.
While space for cars will continue to be a necessity
in the near future, this issue could be remedied by
more high-density housing designs that make
developments more walkable to urban centers or
public transport stations. The trouble is, there is …
7. No Faith in High-Density Housing
There is a longstanding romanticism attached to
many things people believe they require for “the
good life”: a back garden, a double garage, a white
picket fence out front and — most of all —
complete separation from those pesky neighbors.
This vision is largely why suburbia looks the way it
does, and why each plot takes up vast amounts of
space in addition to the aforementioned roads and
parking spaces.
The idea of high-density housing is therefore
unappealing to many, and the benefits it carries —
less green field sites being built over, more
economical land use for developers, more space for
ancillary services like shops and clinics and
stronger social cohesion — are often left
unexplored. Firms such as Alison Brooks
Architects, who designed Newhall Be housing,
and Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios — creator of the
Stirling Prize–winning Accordia development —
have shown that good quality, high-density housing
is possible.
8. Bad Affordable Housing
While materials for every house in these types of
developments are typically on the cheap side, those
used for the requisite affordable housing (often 35
percent of units in each project) are generally the
lowest quality of all, as developers attempt to
minimize the cost of these less-profitable
dwellings. Affordable units are also grouped in the
least favorable parts of a site, such as beside a noisy
highway or in the shadow of power lines.
There are ways to quell this occurrence — “pepper
potting” means affordable are intermixed
throughout developments to increase social
cohesion, a strategy that has been proven not to
“drag down the value” of private houses, as some
have suggested. More must be done to improve the
quality of these properties and reduce the social
stigma surrounding them.
9. Tiny Homes, Tiny Plots
As of 2013, the average one-bedroom new-build
home in the U.K. measured just 46 square meters
(495 square feet). According to the Royal Institute
of British Architects (RIBA), this is about the same
size as an underground train carriage. Cozy.
Meanwhile, the plots themselves are also made as
small as possible (within the bounds of local
planning regulations) in order to maximize profits.
This can lead to scenes like that of Markham in
Ontario, Canada — see the above photograph. This
is high-density housing done the wrong way —
instead of cramming tiny bedrooms in tiny semi-
detached houses on tiny plots, the typologies
referred to in point No. 7 should be investigated.
10. A Poor Mix of Programs
Finally, the implementation of mass-produced
residential housing on the outskirts of cities is
fundamentally flawed on a programmatic level.
These developments are often over-reliant on
existing amenities in urban centers — shops,
restaurants, clinics, schools and leisure facilities —
which leads these services and their associated
infrastructure to come under immense strain. A
more mixed approach to new development, with a
combination of residential, commercial and public
buildings throughout, would reduce people’s
reliance on cars to get around, while also aiding
social cohesion as dormant street fronts become
activated.
1. A Lack of Architectural Variety

2. Contrived Architectural Variety

3. Pastiche Detailing

4. GRP (Glass Reinforced Plastic)

5. Low-Quality Open Spaces

6. Car-Dominated Developments
7. No Faith in High-Density Housing
8. Bad Affordable Housing

9. Tiny Homes, Tiny Plots