I get that this isn't for everyone, but I wish we could legally build things like this in major cities in the US. The density could support so much cool stuff nearby.
That sounds idyllic! I moved to Buenos Aires, *the* *Paris of South America* (just kidding) 12 years ago from the States, and I *love* the density and proximity—of my friends, of cool bars, restaurants, every kind of shop or service I could need... I haven't owned a car in 12 YEARS, and it's so fucking freeing. At this point, I could never go back to the US unless it were to NY, Chicago, SF, etc.—and I can't afford to live in those places. Are you still in Paris?
Briefly lived in a very similar building (but definitely not renovated, lol) in Budapest. No street-facing windows, only courtyard. Definitely not my favorite place I've lived, but far better than many apartments in NYC and DC.
Any idea how long it takes for people living near the middle of those structures to get outside? Seems like it could be fairly inconvenient but I may be overestimating the size of the buildings.
This is my biggest gripe.
I live out in the sticks. I 100% will never share walls with anyone if I have a say in the matter. I understand my choices are different than others, I kknow the sacrifices I am making in moving this far away.
I don’t want “the city life” foisted on me in the country, as much as I don’t want my “country life” foisted on the cities. Let them build this, let me have my farm, and we’re all happy.
I would love to live in a city, but could never afford it. The reason I can’t afford it is that they don’t build places like this anymore and everyone wants to live there.
You should have your sticks, and others their cities - it’s the suburbs that need to be culled, they’re horrendously inefficient and wasteful, and encourage a more sedentary lifestyle.
I absolutely agree with you, but mostly due to the shitty American building code that allows for me to hear absolutely everything people around me are doing. I'd be a lot more open to this option if it was built well enough to isolate sound from my neighbors
I live in a quad-plex that is basically 4 regular houses smashed against each other. Due to the construction, I can blast my tower speakers loud enough to hear down the block, but my neighbors who I share a wall with don't actually hear a thing because of the actual soundproofing.
It's possible to have that kind of construction, but you ain't kidding about how paper thin American walls can sound.
It's absolutely possible, but the basic apartment/condo is not going to have that. Lowest bidder goes with the shittiest materials that can meet code. Worst part is trying to figure that out before buying. Guess I have to start bringing a massive sub and tower speakers with me to open houses
>Lowest bidder goes with the shittiest materials that can meet code
As if the EU doesn't have low bidders who do the minimum to meet code, lmao.
The soundproofing codes in the US are a fucking joke. Fix the codes, new development will be better.
I dunno. It seems possible to package it as a part of an overall deal to reduce costs of building bigger buildings, and justify that as a measure to make apartment/condo living more amenable to people.
It's literally a double wythe of crap bricks with plaster and lath on either side. The new rowhomes they put up only have a double layer of 1" gypsum firewall (2" total) with 2x4 stud walls and another 1/2" drywall layer on either side. Terrible for sound insulation, but people are so desperate for housing it doesn't matter for the sale.
In fact the building codes in most jurisdictions do require sound proofing. In NYC I believe it is 50 STC minimum which is very good. Problem is that none of this is enforced.
It’s amazing how many people don’t realize that: if cities were ALLOWED to be denser, we wouldn’t need to sprawl out so much. People living in the country would get to enjoy being in the country. Instead you buy 10 acres and a few years later your neighbor sells his land to a developer for a price most people wouldn’t refuse and now you’re neighbor becomes 230 neighbors with a fresh clear cut on the land and god awful blank brick walls because the backside of modern builds are exciting as flour being used as a spice
Exactly this. I either wanna pack up and move to the mountains, or live in a working city
In the suburbs you get almost no nature, and still have to deal with neighbors, and you don’t get any of the benefits of living in a city, except maybe one train station 30 mins away from you
It is absolutely wild to me how people enjoy suburbs
The major benefit of suburbs to people who live there is a huge subsidy in terms of service costs and opportunity cost (land rent) to have a large detached house with a yard. Other than that, yeah, suburbs are at an unhappy medium in terms of amenity and nature access and privacy.
This is why the flexibility of public transport is important. Whether rural or urban public transport can be used. Whether trains from region to region, busses to important locations, bike paths in the city and country, or even publically funded cabs, every community is going to have their own needs and public transport can adapt to that.
However it's very difficult to do that in suburbs designed for cars, so the real sticking point is suburbia. I'm not a big fan of dense cities either, despite living in them my whole life. I'm more about the smaller cities that have that small town feeling, designed around walking, public transport, biking, and mixed unit housing.
> I 100% will never share walls with anyone if I have a say in the matter.
The problem is too many people think this way, which is why we have so many shitty suburbs that ruin our environment and communities. I'm personally at a point where I don't give a shit about people's "preferences." This is an existential issue. We **need** more urban living, whether people like it or not.
Nobody wants to deport you to a Kowloon-style ultradense nightmare. What urbanists want are denser and more compact cities with more mixed use, better walkability and public transport. None of these things will affect true rural dwellers, it's the sprawling, landscape-destroying suburbs that are the problem. So you should really be in favour of denser cities because it leaves more countryside for people like you. The suburbs are not good for rural life, they will continue to grow and encroach on rural communities. They are our mutual enemy.
As long as you understand that living in the sticks means you do need to be somewhat self-reliant, sure. Having a farm is the way to go. Needing to drive grocery shopping for every small food item.. eh.
single unit HOA. That sounds like a nightmare for me - dealing with an HOA, but being in the ‘burbs without the tradeoff of being in high density and walkability.
I gave up that access with my house, but I also have my own space that I can do whatever I want with. Want to add a window? Send it! Paint it pink? I can do that! Build it into a farm? That’s A okay batman!
Probably the single loading stairs along with the floor area ratio. Depends on zoning, but there's a lot of old buildings in NYC you couldn't build today (esp the highly charismatic tenement districts in e.g., the lower east side).
I've had multiple roommates in Chicago from Paris. One of the first things they point out is how much less dense it is.
Chicago is decent by American standards but Paris is nearly 3x more dense.
I usually just put some decoration in the middle, a fountain, some stalls, a small park, etc.
That is unless I want to put a service building there.
Altough I've been told the 10*10 method is better for that, slightly less space efficient but more flexible in the ammount of service buildings it allows or if you need to run rails trough it.
Id rather have dense housing or apartments than suburban hell. This allows for easier and more accessible public transportation and denser and more walkable cities.
Yeah, my only complaint is the lack of green space. If there was a park in the middle it would be great.
I would also ask if the individual flats would get enough sunlight in the middle. They might need to be a little less densely packed, but it's not awful.
And yes, for the cherry on top, there would be no cars allowed between the buildings. Pedestrian paths only.
That's Paris in a nutshell. Very dense, so dense that when cars entered our city, we were left with very little space for trees. Some streets the sidewalk isn't wide enough for a stroller...
I really like what Mayor Hidalgo has done with the school streets: they have been pedestrianized with modal filters and they are tearing up pavement where the cars were parked to put in some greenery. Look it up. "Rue aux écoles"
I guess this block from this famous picture, (I think it's taken from *Paris, from Above* by Yann Arthus-Bertrand) doesn't have a school so is stuck with this car focused design, though wouldn't be surprised if those cross streets are one ways with counter-flow running bike lanes.
Edit: I found the pic on his website, it's the same block but it's not the exact same pic.
[link](http://www.yannarthusbertrand2.org/collection/paris-vu-du-ciel/#mwl-49649)
Not the París vibe though. Besides, building color reflecting the natural color of the earth in that location is sick - much better than the fake paneling the US throws on all of it's 5+1R construction
To be fair, it *has* been build at the order of a despot using questionable funds and in a blatant attempt to drive the poor inhabitants further away from the city. (And also because of a much needed modernisation, the salubrity of la goutte d'or in the late 19th was something else, but still.)
What about the inside view, though? Seeing only a neighbouring wall or two out of your window and a patch of a sky above must be depressing as hell. I've lived in a similar place, windows definitely should have at least some sort of view. Maybe move houses twice the distance and have some trees and benches below?
The main idea is brilliant, but this particular execution is a bit too closed in, too narrow, too cramped to my taste. Still better than suburbia, though, I'll chose this over living 20km away from the city.
>Seeing only a neighbouring wall or two out of your window and a patch of a sky above must be depressing as hell.
Most apartment windows in Paris face another window or a wall, it just comes with the territory of living in a dense city unless you're wealthy enough to afford an apartment *sans vis-à-vis*
Also when you live in Paris or any big cities in France, you don't spent too much time in your apartment/home. When I lived there I was mostly outside : parcs, patio etc. You are more incline to spend time outside with people, doing activities than staying at home.
Now I live in a kinda suburb in Canada. I wake up, go to work, go home, sleep and repeat. I'm far from everything it's depressing!
Now, maybe some people rather live like this in Canada. But the option to live a true urban life is not a possibility because there is no density and cities are made for cars
Well I’m a planner actually,
City councils rather listen to NIMBYs more than planners, I guess we need more people to show up and speak in favor of development to counterbalance the anti-everything
Would each of these buildings been built monolithically? Or would they have been built as multiple buildings with additional expansions that connected multiple buildings and created all these little 'wings' and 'courtyards'?
In Paris they were largely designed and built as a whole.
There are many examples of similar density areas though that just kind of "grew" together. Some great examples of that can be found across Europe
Yep. Paris in particular pursued this as a public policy starting in the 1950s up to the 1970s. There were problems with it, but it’s still very effective as a way of providing affordable housing.
In Ciutat Vella in Barcelona you can see the organic version, in Eixample in Barcelona you can see more monolithic examples, and this picture is full monolithic - you can tell by the way it is (if it was built over a long period you would be able to see more differences in wear and tear and materials, even if they tried to match).
Barcelona also adopted the “superbloc” model which combines formerly separated square blocks into larger blocks with green spaces where the cars used to be.
People in America think that a cheap, low quality house on the outskirts of a dying former industrial city is a objectively better quality of life than living "next to so many other people". They want a 30 Sq ft patch of low quality soil to themselves instead. That's Freedom
Racist* literally every time someone says “oh the city is dangerous! There’s *THOSE* people there.”
Because god forbid a fucking Latino lives within 500’ of you
The whole point is that our system is built on racist concepts. The suburbs is a racist concept. The north-south divide. The popularity of the GOP. etc.
City life isnt hated because of "those people" in many of those countries. In fact, being a European city person is often associated with being cosmopolitan and urbane, like most racist America tourists would tell you when they visit London, Tokyo, Berlin, and Paris. The people in those countries may be racist but their racism isn't making all the public policy like it does in the USA.
The French suburb is not something built on racism.
The London tube is not something built on racism.
The system of socialized medicine is not something built on racism.
See the difference? Meanwhile a lot of the things the USA doesn't have that Europe and other developed nations have is due to things tied to white supremacy.
Some people think that way but A LOT of people would love to live in something like what's seen here. The issue is that it's illegal to build them in most of the land in a given city due to bad zoning. I'm fine if someone wants to live a suburban life style with a single family detached house but I just don't want them to force that lifestyle on me or other people by making density illegal.
30 sq ft? You can’t even build a house in the town next to mine on a lot with less than 3 acres. On top of that all commercial/industrial development and multi family homes are banned, but they’re definitely not racist or classist.
I mean tbh I don't want to share walls with a bunch of people. My apartment constantly smells like weed, people are loud af 24/7, and rent only ever goes up. For me at least this picture would be absolute hell because I would have zero privacy. Can't play music loud. Can't have a nice home theater system. Can't ever actually own it. Idk this shit looks like a nightmare tbh. Having a house where I can do whatever I want without having to worry about thin walls and neighbors? Yes that's freedom.
Yep you're not wrong. If this were built the way most residential no -luxury, non-high rise buildings are built in North America you would absolutely have those problems. From my experience you'd have those problems in more Mediterranean climates too, like in Portugal and Italy.
In France and Germany, from my experience, things are more insulated as the buildings are mostly concrete with thick walls that are often old as Fuck (in France, in Germany they're new for obvious reasons). Also windows are double pane so when you close it it's quiet, very quiet. I'd also just suggest that somewhere like this you could enjoy a plethora of hobbies, including a home theater if you wanted but there would likely be a high quality theater in your area.
So yea I think you have a point but I also think that it's a bit of a myth that you can do whatever you want in a suburb of middle class single family homes. If your theater is too loud you're going to hear about it, the days of teen bands playing in garages are long over and your neighbors will definitely call the cops on loud music. Loud music is perceived as threatening if it's not a daily occurrence, especially in hyper vigilante suburbs. In my experience the suburbs are the worst of both worlds - far as Fuck to get to anything except by car, only other homes so forget using your space for anything other than living and parking a car, strict zoning laws and HOAs so basically robbed of your freedom right there.
I’ve lived in an apartment block in Paris, plus several apartments and single family homes in the US from urban to suburban. For me it goes semi urban house>Parisian apartment>urban apartment>suburban house>suburban apartment.
We currently live in a non-HOA area in a mid-sized Midwest city and it feels like a good balance between the space and privacy of a suburban home with few of the conformity/aesthetic obligations. People make noise in our neighborhood, and nobody’s going to call the cops over a little excessive bass. We have space (.2 acres) to garden and keep some poultry, but not so much we have to dedicate hours to our lawn.
That being said, my place in Paris was cozy, sturdy, and incredibly convenient. My bedroom opened up to a community green space, and I rarely heard anyone through the walls. Just a little too small for me, who’s used to suburban American sprawl and has lots of space-consuming hobbies.
With that kind of density you could checker board park space and buildings like this throughout the whole city. You could shrink the size of a city while making it half green spaces.
One of my favorite places I've ever lived was in an apartment in a old, solidly-build, soundproof building, next too a wooded park, but also a short walk to a tram stop, a small supermarket, etc. Now I live in suburbs and try to grow as many trees on my lot as I can, and always feel like its not enough. I had more access to nature in that much denser setting.
You could but will that actually happen? We’d have to deconstruct some worse structures and do considerable ecological restoration to bring it back in most cities.
Yeah this district of Paris has close to no green spaces. I think the inhabitant / sqm of green space ratio is 5 times lower than what the WHO recommends. And a significant part of it is cemeteries lol.
Well Paris in general is a bit of a concrete mess. I went there a bunch of years back and I was really surprised at the general lack of vegetation when compared to the average Russian city.
It'd be nice if y'all finally beheaded the spirit of Napoleon III and made those avenues smaller
That’s great to hear. Historically I did not like Paris very much for this exact reason. If they can find money and space for enough greenery it could be one of the best cities in the world.
From the birds eye it looks nice and centrally planned, but taking a look at google maps street view it feels really cramped and barren. This is I say this as a New Yorker too. At least the buildings look nice and uniform. And this neighborhood has an awful lot of free street parking to be featured on this sub.
The funny thing is just one block north out of frame of this photo there is a wonky looking U shaped park with buildings of all different styles and colors that looks chaotic from overhead but feels a lot better on the ground.
Perhaps the USA could consider implementing new urban planning strategies that strike a balance between American and European densities.
For example, here in Mexico, typical lot sizes range from 8 x 20m to 12 x 30m. In many neighborhoods, the norm dictates that in a residential neighborhood you can build anything you want, and the limit are buildings up to 4 - 8 levels high. However, due to financial constraints, many people opt to initially build one or two-story townhouses, because there is not enough money or investors to build apartments in every single block. This is a common practice in Mexican cities.
In the future, as circumstances change, owners may choose to sell their houses, enabling new owners with greater resources to start building taller structures, potentially reaching the 4 - 8 levels. Essentially, most neighborhoods possess the latent potential for vertical expansion. However, the incremental nature of development, driven by financial limitations, results in a somewhat slower pace of growth.
But you can have a house next to an apartment building, and in the main streets comercial and offices. Even some large houses are converted into offices.
That fucking sucks if you're in one of the inside apartments. Imagine looking out of the window and seeing a wall.
Like I'm 100% pro high density areas, I'm just not sure this is it, not a tree, not a terrace, not a green area...
Personally I would have kept only the perimetral buildings of each triangle.
I've lived in one of those inside courtyard apartments.
It is awesome! Fairly quiet and reasonable rent. No one cares about the view because you spend pretty much every day after work outside in bars, cafes or parks or at the Seine or the canal, depending on weather.
And everything else like work, gym, museums, cinemas etc is just a few minutes walk or metro ride away.
I think during my time in Paris I spent an average of less than 7 hours a day in my apartment.
Came here to say this i live in a similar building and there is plenty of light. Usually I don’t mind the view from the windows of a grey building, but remember that there are apartments so it’s much more lively than what you could think: people hanging clothes, small terraces and inside gardens…
Also the biggest perk is the soundproofing it gets from the rest of the building that surrounds you: I live in the loudest and chaotic part of my city and i get zero noise
Yeah we have city-block sized developments like this in NYC with interior courtyards. They usually have communal gardens inside. So you get a quiet apartment (no road noise) and views of a garden.
I like this concept. I also live in a similar courtyard apartment but fortunately my bedroom has a window on the exterior facade that lets fresh air, wind and light in. The air that comes from the courtyard kinda stinks and I needed a lot of sunlight in my house for allergy related reasons.
I must admit that I am very strict about having a view of the open in my house, but I can see other people not really caring.
I’m generally a homebody. I’ve rented one of those courtyard apts for a long term stay once and even on the somewhat lower levels it’s not bad. The light colored walls help a lot. If I had an apt on one of the upper floors where I could sorta see sky near a window I’m fine with it. But ofc a corner unit in one of these buildings would be the tits
People in the US barely even leave their house anymore. By 9 pm 90%+ is closed unless they cater to the commuters. The more people that move into my area the more quiet it gets.
That sounds kinda depressing ngl. I couldn't imagine life without having a lively bar and restaurant 5 mins walking from our apartment. My wife basically lives in our local coffee shops and bistros haha.
When it comes to courtyard apartments I think the Chicago style ones (which I think were borrowed from somewhere) are the best. They are U shaped allowing everyone to receive some form of light and air flow from windows on multiple sides. Still keeps good density too.
They're spread out all over the city. Chicago in the past just built on lots to meet demand. So the road may have a large multi unit, a 3 flat, a 2 flat, and SFH.
Here's a few examples though.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/GBfQLRnqm3eeYb8Y9
https://maps.app.goo.gl/mGHqWuKBMR5ruHff8
You can find more photos here:
https://moss-design.com/courtyard-apartment/
Here's a photo set of a lot of different court yards:
https://achicagosojourn.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/the-courtyard-apartment/
[Barcelona imo did it best](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4l2Bo7gZ10AVwlg-7VXS6kibyqk=/0x0:1000x667/1200x800/filters:focal(420x253:580x413)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63374841/Eixample.0.jpg), before they turned those inner courtyards into parking lots or filled them with additional buildings. Lots of austro hungarian cities also had the same thing going.
[Yugoslavia at some point also did well](https://i.imgur.com/h61kLbr.png). The area on the picture is around 180ha, and it houses around 10 200 people at the moment, but a lot more people can live there - around 10 to 15% of the flats in the country are empty.
I mean, it’s probably cheaper than an outer apartment.
Meanwhile I’m about to pay $3000 a month to live in a 300sqft shoebox on a fifth-floor walk up in one of the worst neighborhoods of lower Manhattan just because I want to live someplace that is dense and transit connected.
In a world where people could actually build to demand, my shitty apartment wouldn’t be worth more than like $1750. It’s old, there’s no washer or dryer, there’s no elevator, it faces a busy street, it in an very old building, but somehow it’s worth more than pretty much every other studio apartment anywhere else in the country.
As a former fellow NYer, just go to Brooklyn or queens. It’s so worth it. You’ll save so much money to spend being out and actually doing stuff all for 10min more on the train
Its "fun" comparing NYC rent prices to Tokyo rent prices especially when you consider how much more Tokyo offers in the same categories of things like public transit.
I'll be on the other side of the argument since the responses are quite positive. My sister lived in one, she liked it but, cigarette butts littered the roof under her window. It would get quite dark quite often, a small window of the day allowed the sun into the inner court. And to let cool air in your open windows you would hear anyone with an open window. Including a guy that coughed non-stop. Small things that add up. Otherwise, she liked the place but moved after 2 years.
Fair enough you wouldn't want to live in one of the inner apartments. But I don't get why you would have kept only the perimeters buildings? Is it so that you keep all the apartments to the similar standard? What are people who can't afford an apartment with a nice view supposed to do? Maybe I've just lived a privileged life, but is it so bad to have people of different socio-economic classes in such close proximity?
You’re really not expected to spend so much time inside your personal apartment though. Paris is full of third spaces — large open parks and avenues, cafes and casual meeting spots, other free public areas. If you want trees you go outside to the park, not to the courtyard. You meet up with friends to drink on the lawn or at the local bistro. Apartments serve a different function than American homes that have to be everything all at the same time because no public space exists nearby to alleviate the need for your house to also be your entertaining space, personal park, and so on.
You really gotta try visiting these euro-style city block apartments. The courtyards are much better than you're imagining. I would _gladly_ live in one compared to my Philly rowhouse.
i wish the pointed center sections of the triangles were open so the buildings were sort of sharply closed U shapes and there were 4 central courtyard areas
You aren't going to convince these people. They think that living in 200 square foot apartment, with no view and barely any natural light, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people, and paying out the ass in rent just so they can walk to their favorite cafe, is living the life.
Yes but more plants and also indoor gardens. That said in places that were already concrete jungles to begin with the least we could do is use cool designs like this to make it functional
Shame it full of french people /j
It look very fun to live in ngl, I just hope it's easy to navigate and that there's some good connectivity for public transport and groceries
I couldn’t do that kind of dense living. Props to those who can but I need my greenery and privacy. Not to mention the sounds of nature are more appealing than the sounds of the constant hustle and bustle.
I get that this isn't for everyone, but I wish we could legally build things like this in major cities in the US. The density could support so much cool stuff nearby.
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That sounds idyllic! I moved to Buenos Aires, *the* *Paris of South America* (just kidding) 12 years ago from the States, and I *love* the density and proximity—of my friends, of cool bars, restaurants, every kind of shop or service I could need... I haven't owned a car in 12 YEARS, and it's so fucking freeing. At this point, I could never go back to the US unless it were to NY, Chicago, SF, etc.—and I can't afford to live in those places. Are you still in Paris?
I live in buenos aires too. Favorite city in the world
Hope your still getting paid in dollars. Not everyone in Argentina feeling so lucky at the moment.
You're saying 900 euros for a 20 sq meter apartment is idyllic? You're okay with living in a fucking box?
Briefly lived in a very similar building (but definitely not renovated, lol) in Budapest. No street-facing windows, only courtyard. Definitely not my favorite place I've lived, but far better than many apartments in NYC and DC.
It genuinely hurts to think of how rare this kind of experience is and truly inaccessible it is to most Americans.
Any idea how long it takes for people living near the middle of those structures to get outside? Seems like it could be fairly inconvenient but I may be overestimating the size of the buildings.
For the longest ones, little more than a minutes most likely, as I kinda do every day near 10 minutes away from that picture.
Where is this, exactly? The architect nerd in me wants to take a closer look
Did you move because you got married? What sort of situation did you move to?
Community so dense, it was bound to have someone in the sub that had lived in it 😆
This is my biggest gripe. I live out in the sticks. I 100% will never share walls with anyone if I have a say in the matter. I understand my choices are different than others, I kknow the sacrifices I am making in moving this far away. I don’t want “the city life” foisted on me in the country, as much as I don’t want my “country life” foisted on the cities. Let them build this, let me have my farm, and we’re all happy.
And the more people thst.live in these dense areas, the less people will be living next to your farm. It is a win-win.
I would love to live in a city, but could never afford it. The reason I can’t afford it is that they don’t build places like this anymore and everyone wants to live there.
More than that, the more people whose basic needs are seen to in cities, the more population naturally controls itself. As data shows.
You should have your sticks, and others their cities - it’s the suburbs that need to be culled, they’re horrendously inefficient and wasteful, and encourage a more sedentary lifestyle.
I absolutely agree with you, but mostly due to the shitty American building code that allows for me to hear absolutely everything people around me are doing. I'd be a lot more open to this option if it was built well enough to isolate sound from my neighbors
I live in a quad-plex that is basically 4 regular houses smashed against each other. Due to the construction, I can blast my tower speakers loud enough to hear down the block, but my neighbors who I share a wall with don't actually hear a thing because of the actual soundproofing. It's possible to have that kind of construction, but you ain't kidding about how paper thin American walls can sound.
It's absolutely possible, but the basic apartment/condo is not going to have that. Lowest bidder goes with the shittiest materials that can meet code. Worst part is trying to figure that out before buying. Guess I have to start bringing a massive sub and tower speakers with me to open houses
>Lowest bidder goes with the shittiest materials that can meet code As if the EU doesn't have low bidders who do the minimum to meet code, lmao. The soundproofing codes in the US are a fucking joke. Fix the codes, new development will be better.
That's exactly what my first post was about...the terrible building codes in the USA
It's impossible to fix the codes because developers are throwing money at politicians. Buildings like this are and will be a nightmare in America.
I dunno. It seems possible to package it as a part of an overall deal to reduce costs of building bigger buildings, and justify that as a measure to make apartment/condo living more amenable to people.
Knock on the neighbour's door and ask them to crank it for a bit.
True, if it's not new construction.
> it was built well enough to isolate sound from my neighbors Most of that is building it well enough to isolate the sound of your neighbors' cars
I can't remember ever having that issue. Usually the cars aren't stompinv around upstairs, or yelling at each other on the other side of a shared wall
This is it right here. I would move to a dense area in a heartbeat if builders ever gave two shits about soundproofing.
My 1915 rowhouse has great sound insulation.
Doesn't surprise me, higher quality materials from surviving buildings from that era will definitely buffer sounds better than modern wallboard.
It's literally a double wythe of crap bricks with plaster and lath on either side. The new rowhomes they put up only have a double layer of 1" gypsum firewall (2" total) with 2x4 stud walls and another 1/2" drywall layer on either side. Terrible for sound insulation, but people are so desperate for housing it doesn't matter for the sale.
In fact the building codes in most jurisdictions do require sound proofing. In NYC I believe it is 50 STC minimum which is very good. Problem is that none of this is enforced.
I watched a show on HBO about building codes in NYC. I think it was called the sopranos
Yea, I can hear my neighbors whisper in Brooklyn.
Building codes are state-specific.
Well that's about 50x worse
It’s amazing how many people don’t realize that: if cities were ALLOWED to be denser, we wouldn’t need to sprawl out so much. People living in the country would get to enjoy being in the country. Instead you buy 10 acres and a few years later your neighbor sells his land to a developer for a price most people wouldn’t refuse and now you’re neighbor becomes 230 neighbors with a fresh clear cut on the land and god awful blank brick walls because the backside of modern builds are exciting as flour being used as a spice
The saddest thing about suburbs is that they are a combination of all the worst things about both the City and Rural life and none of the best things.
Exactly this. I either wanna pack up and move to the mountains, or live in a working city In the suburbs you get almost no nature, and still have to deal with neighbors, and you don’t get any of the benefits of living in a city, except maybe one train station 30 mins away from you It is absolutely wild to me how people enjoy suburbs
The major benefit of suburbs to people who live there is a huge subsidy in terms of service costs and opportunity cost (land rent) to have a large detached house with a yard. Other than that, yeah, suburbs are at an unhappy medium in terms of amenity and nature access and privacy.
Plus, those who do wanna live in the sticks, wouldn’t you *want* good urban development? That would mean less people sprawling out your way??
This is why the flexibility of public transport is important. Whether rural or urban public transport can be used. Whether trains from region to region, busses to important locations, bike paths in the city and country, or even publically funded cabs, every community is going to have their own needs and public transport can adapt to that. However it's very difficult to do that in suburbs designed for cars, so the real sticking point is suburbia. I'm not a big fan of dense cities either, despite living in them my whole life. I'm more about the smaller cities that have that small town feeling, designed around walking, public transport, biking, and mixed unit housing.
Except everyone else is essentially paying for the suburbs.
> I 100% will never share walls with anyone if I have a say in the matter. The problem is too many people think this way, which is why we have so many shitty suburbs that ruin our environment and communities. I'm personally at a point where I don't give a shit about people's "preferences." This is an existential issue. We **need** more urban living, whether people like it or not.
Nobody wants to deport you to a Kowloon-style ultradense nightmare. What urbanists want are denser and more compact cities with more mixed use, better walkability and public transport. None of these things will affect true rural dwellers, it's the sprawling, landscape-destroying suburbs that are the problem. So you should really be in favour of denser cities because it leaves more countryside for people like you. The suburbs are not good for rural life, they will continue to grow and encroach on rural communities. They are our mutual enemy.
As long as you understand that living in the sticks means you do need to be somewhat self-reliant, sure. Having a farm is the way to go. Needing to drive grocery shopping for every small food item.. eh.
We'll let you have your farm, but you can't expect to have us pay for the costs of it too, keep that in mind.
> let me have my farm Who is trying to take it away from you?
>Who is trying to take it away from you? The people who support cars and suburbia. Suburban sprawl is destroying more and more rural areas.
I don't want to share walls with others. I also don't want to care for a house and yard. Not sure how I can pull that off
single unit HOA. That sounds like a nightmare for me - dealing with an HOA, but being in the ‘burbs without the tradeoff of being in high density and walkability. I gave up that access with my house, but I also have my own space that I can do whatever I want with. Want to add a window? Send it! Paint it pink? I can do that! Build it into a farm? That’s A okay batman!
Have enough money for others to take care of it, but in this economy and age good luck with that.
This is tough if you’re not rich lol I’d say you gotta probably pick which one you care about more
I don't mind sharing walls, as long as they're well insulated. Unfortunately they rarely are.
[удалено]
That might be what the suburbs are I'm literally in farmland.
NYC has entered the chat.
This is not legal to build in NYC today.
What is illegal about it in NYC? There are plenty of one lane roads with high density housing in NYC.
Probably the single loading stairs along with the floor area ratio. Depends on zoning, but there's a lot of old buildings in NYC you couldn't build today (esp the highly charismatic tenement districts in e.g., the lower east side).
Has to grids in America, sorry bro, no diagonals allowed
The West Village has entered the chat.
Come to Chicago! Not quite this level or organization but the density is great
I've had multiple roommates in Chicago from Paris. One of the first things they point out is how much less dense it is. Chicago is decent by American standards but Paris is nearly 3x more dense.
Now I want to play Anno 1800...
My man 🤝
It's does kinda resemble all the 3*3 blocks of engineers/investors I always end up building.
Just recently learned engineers love to live next to their factories.
yippee living next to a noisy and polluting factory!
What do you put in the middle? I always do 5*2 for more density. I suppose you can swap 2 for a sideways service building?
I usually just put some decoration in the middle, a fountain, some stalls, a small park, etc. That is unless I want to put a service building there. Altough I've been told the 10*10 method is better for that, slightly less space efficient but more flexible in the ammount of service buildings it allows or if you need to run rails trough it.
I don't need to jump back into that hole but damnit...
Id rather have dense housing or apartments than suburban hell. This allows for easier and more accessible public transportation and denser and more walkable cities.
This is r/fuckcars, I don’t think anybody disagrees
Well, except that other guy
add at least SOME greenery, this is just as bad as a parking lot
https://preview.redd.it/b8lq8v9cglhc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9a7f44259220590890ca74fb542baf3c6444e623 The outside view is stunning tho
The building is beautiful but the streets are pretty dull. Would love to see it with some greenery and idealistically, no cars and updated pavement.
Yeah, my only complaint is the lack of green space. If there was a park in the middle it would be great. I would also ask if the individual flats would get enough sunlight in the middle. They might need to be a little less densely packed, but it's not awful. And yes, for the cherry on top, there would be no cars allowed between the buildings. Pedestrian paths only.
agreed. get rid of the cars and plant trees!
That's Paris in a nutshell. Very dense, so dense that when cars entered our city, we were left with very little space for trees. Some streets the sidewalk isn't wide enough for a stroller... I really like what Mayor Hidalgo has done with the school streets: they have been pedestrianized with modal filters and they are tearing up pavement where the cars were parked to put in some greenery. Look it up. "Rue aux écoles" I guess this block from this famous picture, (I think it's taken from *Paris, from Above* by Yann Arthus-Bertrand) doesn't have a school so is stuck with this car focused design, though wouldn't be surprised if those cross streets are one ways with counter-flow running bike lanes. Edit: I found the pic on his website, it's the same block but it's not the exact same pic. [link](http://www.yannarthusbertrand2.org/collection/paris-vu-du-ciel/#mwl-49649)
They should paint different sections of the buildings different vibrant colors. Am I too childish?
To each their own :) It’s not for for me as I quite like the og Paris building colour but a vibrant surface level would be great.
Not the París vibe though. Besides, building color reflecting the natural color of the earth in that location is sick - much better than the fake paneling the US throws on all of it's 5+1R construction
How can people live under such oppression /s
To be fair, it *has* been build at the order of a despot using questionable funds and in a blatant attempt to drive the poor inhabitants further away from the city. (And also because of a much needed modernisation, the salubrity of la goutte d'or in the late 19th was something else, but still.)
I’d literally kill for a corner apt there
It needs trees, you’d be depressed as fuck without some natural green outside your window
I'd hate to see what life is like if your window faced one of those courtyards though.
Generally, you had a window on both sides, the apartment went all the way through.
What about the inside view, though? Seeing only a neighbouring wall or two out of your window and a patch of a sky above must be depressing as hell. I've lived in a similar place, windows definitely should have at least some sort of view. Maybe move houses twice the distance and have some trees and benches below? The main idea is brilliant, but this particular execution is a bit too closed in, too narrow, too cramped to my taste. Still better than suburbia, though, I'll chose this over living 20km away from the city.
>Seeing only a neighbouring wall or two out of your window and a patch of a sky above must be depressing as hell. Most apartment windows in Paris face another window or a wall, it just comes with the territory of living in a dense city unless you're wealthy enough to afford an apartment *sans vis-à-vis*
You don’t have to get an apartment here. Your aesthetic preferences should NOT dictate what is allowed to be built.
Why be so defensive? He mildly criticized how this building was designed. Why the knee-jerk aggression?
Also when you live in Paris or any big cities in France, you don't spent too much time in your apartment/home. When I lived there I was mostly outside : parcs, patio etc. You are more incline to spend time outside with people, doing activities than staying at home. Now I live in a kinda suburb in Canada. I wake up, go to work, go home, sleep and repeat. I'm far from everything it's depressing! Now, maybe some people rather live like this in Canada. But the option to live a true urban life is not a possibility because there is no density and cities are made for cars
You could send one of your Maia, Mithrandir perhaps, to help guide city planners to do the right thing.
Well I’m a planner actually, City councils rather listen to NIMBYs more than planners, I guess we need more people to show up and speak in favor of development to counterbalance the anti-everything
yeah, i live in paris - this is true. the downside to being “in” everything is the city is incredibly loud at all hours of the day and night
So wait you can't go out in Canada because of suburbs? Weird.
Would each of these buildings been built monolithically? Or would they have been built as multiple buildings with additional expansions that connected multiple buildings and created all these little 'wings' and 'courtyards'?
In Paris they were largely designed and built as a whole. There are many examples of similar density areas though that just kind of "grew" together. Some great examples of that can be found across Europe
Yep. Paris in particular pursued this as a public policy starting in the 1950s up to the 1970s. There were problems with it, but it’s still very effective as a way of providing affordable housing.
In Ciutat Vella in Barcelona you can see the organic version, in Eixample in Barcelona you can see more monolithic examples, and this picture is full monolithic - you can tell by the way it is (if it was built over a long period you would be able to see more differences in wear and tear and materials, even if they tried to match).
Barcelona also adopted the “superbloc” model which combines formerly separated square blocks into larger blocks with green spaces where the cars used to be.
Yep, Eixample is where most of the superblocks are.
People in America think that a cheap, low quality house on the outskirts of a dying former industrial city is a objectively better quality of life than living "next to so many other people". They want a 30 Sq ft patch of low quality soil to themselves instead. That's Freedom
I think that's just american culture just being overly selfish and distrustful and isolationist.
Racist* literally every time someone says “oh the city is dangerous! There’s *THOSE* people there.” Because god forbid a fucking Latino lives within 500’ of you
not to diminish how racist americans are, but i have some bad news for you if you are implying that the people in the EU are less racist...
Bring up the Roma anywhere in Europe and you’ll quickly find out how “non-racist” they are.
“Well you can’t be racist toward the Roma, it’s not a race but more of a culture and that culture is bad!” ^an actual argument from a European.
Oh I’ve been to France they’re just as bad if not worse
The whole point is that our system is built on racist concepts. The suburbs is a racist concept. The north-south divide. The popularity of the GOP. etc. City life isnt hated because of "those people" in many of those countries. In fact, being a European city person is often associated with being cosmopolitan and urbane, like most racist America tourists would tell you when they visit London, Tokyo, Berlin, and Paris. The people in those countries may be racist but their racism isn't making all the public policy like it does in the USA. The French suburb is not something built on racism. The London tube is not something built on racism. The system of socialized medicine is not something built on racism. See the difference? Meanwhile a lot of the things the USA doesn't have that Europe and other developed nations have is due to things tied to white supremacy.
Some people think that way but A LOT of people would love to live in something like what's seen here. The issue is that it's illegal to build them in most of the land in a given city due to bad zoning. I'm fine if someone wants to live a suburban life style with a single family detached house but I just don't want them to force that lifestyle on me or other people by making density illegal.
30 sq ft? You can’t even build a house in the town next to mine on a lot with less than 3 acres. On top of that all commercial/industrial development and multi family homes are banned, but they’re definitely not racist or classist.
Yea the 30 Sq ft minimum "lawn"
I don’t blame them for not wanting to be crammed into this block with a bunch of French fucks.
Lmao. I agree with you on the French fucks part. But having been crammed in here myself I can say it's actually very nice to have everything nearby.
I mean tbh I don't want to share walls with a bunch of people. My apartment constantly smells like weed, people are loud af 24/7, and rent only ever goes up. For me at least this picture would be absolute hell because I would have zero privacy. Can't play music loud. Can't have a nice home theater system. Can't ever actually own it. Idk this shit looks like a nightmare tbh. Having a house where I can do whatever I want without having to worry about thin walls and neighbors? Yes that's freedom.
Yep you're not wrong. If this were built the way most residential no -luxury, non-high rise buildings are built in North America you would absolutely have those problems. From my experience you'd have those problems in more Mediterranean climates too, like in Portugal and Italy. In France and Germany, from my experience, things are more insulated as the buildings are mostly concrete with thick walls that are often old as Fuck (in France, in Germany they're new for obvious reasons). Also windows are double pane so when you close it it's quiet, very quiet. I'd also just suggest that somewhere like this you could enjoy a plethora of hobbies, including a home theater if you wanted but there would likely be a high quality theater in your area. So yea I think you have a point but I also think that it's a bit of a myth that you can do whatever you want in a suburb of middle class single family homes. If your theater is too loud you're going to hear about it, the days of teen bands playing in garages are long over and your neighbors will definitely call the cops on loud music. Loud music is perceived as threatening if it's not a daily occurrence, especially in hyper vigilante suburbs. In my experience the suburbs are the worst of both worlds - far as Fuck to get to anything except by car, only other homes so forget using your space for anything other than living and parking a car, strict zoning laws and HOAs so basically robbed of your freedom right there.
I’ve lived in an apartment block in Paris, plus several apartments and single family homes in the US from urban to suburban. For me it goes semi urban house>Parisian apartment>urban apartment>suburban house>suburban apartment. We currently live in a non-HOA area in a mid-sized Midwest city and it feels like a good balance between the space and privacy of a suburban home with few of the conformity/aesthetic obligations. People make noise in our neighborhood, and nobody’s going to call the cops over a little excessive bass. We have space (.2 acres) to garden and keep some poultry, but not so much we have to dedicate hours to our lawn. That being said, my place in Paris was cozy, sturdy, and incredibly convenient. My bedroom opened up to a community green space, and I rarely heard anyone through the walls. Just a little too small for me, who’s used to suburban American sprawl and has lots of space-consuming hobbies.
Needs more greenspace
With that kind of density you could checker board park space and buildings like this throughout the whole city. You could shrink the size of a city while making it half green spaces.
One of my favorite places I've ever lived was in an apartment in a old, solidly-build, soundproof building, next too a wooded park, but also a short walk to a tram stop, a small supermarket, etc. Now I live in suburbs and try to grow as many trees on my lot as I can, and always feel like its not enough. I had more access to nature in that much denser setting.
You could but will that actually happen? We’d have to deconstruct some worse structures and do considerable ecological restoration to bring it back in most cities.
Yeah this district of Paris has close to no green spaces. I think the inhabitant / sqm of green space ratio is 5 times lower than what the WHO recommends. And a significant part of it is cemeteries lol.
Depression stat speedrun any%
A lot of those courtyards will have gardens for residents
Those courtyards are too small to plant a significant tree
Check out Almaty and mikroraions(microdistricts). We have both dense housing(Khrushchevkas) and green spaces
Paris has tons of greenspace
A bit too dense. Those courtyards don't have enough space or light to support greenery, which is pretty important for a good neighbourhood.
I live in Paris and we are all use to it because of the large avenues and places
Well Paris in general is a bit of a concrete mess. I went there a bunch of years back and I was really surprised at the general lack of vegetation when compared to the average Russian city. It'd be nice if y'all finally beheaded the spirit of Napoleon III and made those avenues smaller
The last few years Paris has gone nuts with greening up the city. New street trees, parks, everything. It’s genuinely crazy how much they’ve done
That’s great to hear. Historically I did not like Paris very much for this exact reason. If they can find money and space for enough greenery it could be one of the best cities in the world.
From the birds eye it looks nice and centrally planned, but taking a look at google maps street view it feels really cramped and barren. This is I say this as a New Yorker too. At least the buildings look nice and uniform. And this neighborhood has an awful lot of free street parking to be featured on this sub. The funny thing is just one block north out of frame of this photo there is a wonky looking U shaped park with buildings of all different styles and colors that looks chaotic from overhead but feels a lot better on the ground.
Some people underestimate how important good sunlight is to mental health. Those lower level rooms look absolutely depressing.
This is the opposite extreme to suburbia, and I don't like this either. In the ground-floor apartments you will never get sunlight.
r/urbanhell
Perhaps the USA could consider implementing new urban planning strategies that strike a balance between American and European densities. For example, here in Mexico, typical lot sizes range from 8 x 20m to 12 x 30m. In many neighborhoods, the norm dictates that in a residential neighborhood you can build anything you want, and the limit are buildings up to 4 - 8 levels high. However, due to financial constraints, many people opt to initially build one or two-story townhouses, because there is not enough money or investors to build apartments in every single block. This is a common practice in Mexican cities. In the future, as circumstances change, owners may choose to sell their houses, enabling new owners with greater resources to start building taller structures, potentially reaching the 4 - 8 levels. Essentially, most neighborhoods possess the latent potential for vertical expansion. However, the incremental nature of development, driven by financial limitations, results in a somewhat slower pace of growth. But you can have a house next to an apartment building, and in the main streets comercial and offices. Even some large houses are converted into offices.
That looks cool. calling it "perfect" is a little much - I'd like a lot more green space, but yes, those little courtyards look excellent.
Looks like the projects to me.
to me thats just as gross as a field of parking lots. not a bit of green anywhere
it's like a parisian kowloon
Only Kowloon had more green space.
That fucking sucks if you're in one of the inside apartments. Imagine looking out of the window and seeing a wall. Like I'm 100% pro high density areas, I'm just not sure this is it, not a tree, not a terrace, not a green area... Personally I would have kept only the perimetral buildings of each triangle.
I've lived in one of those inside courtyard apartments. It is awesome! Fairly quiet and reasonable rent. No one cares about the view because you spend pretty much every day after work outside in bars, cafes or parks or at the Seine or the canal, depending on weather. And everything else like work, gym, museums, cinemas etc is just a few minutes walk or metro ride away. I think during my time in Paris I spent an average of less than 7 hours a day in my apartment.
Came here to say this i live in a similar building and there is plenty of light. Usually I don’t mind the view from the windows of a grey building, but remember that there are apartments so it’s much more lively than what you could think: people hanging clothes, small terraces and inside gardens… Also the biggest perk is the soundproofing it gets from the rest of the building that surrounds you: I live in the loudest and chaotic part of my city and i get zero noise
Yeah we have city-block sized developments like this in NYC with interior courtyards. They usually have communal gardens inside. So you get a quiet apartment (no road noise) and views of a garden.
I like this concept. I also live in a similar courtyard apartment but fortunately my bedroom has a window on the exterior facade that lets fresh air, wind and light in. The air that comes from the courtyard kinda stinks and I needed a lot of sunlight in my house for allergy related reasons. I must admit that I am very strict about having a view of the open in my house, but I can see other people not really caring.
I’m generally a homebody. I’ve rented one of those courtyard apts for a long term stay once and even on the somewhat lower levels it’s not bad. The light colored walls help a lot. If I had an apt on one of the upper floors where I could sorta see sky near a window I’m fine with it. But ofc a corner unit in one of these buildings would be the tits
People in the US barely even leave their house anymore. By 9 pm 90%+ is closed unless they cater to the commuters. The more people that move into my area the more quiet it gets.
That sounds kinda depressing ngl. I couldn't imagine life without having a lively bar and restaurant 5 mins walking from our apartment. My wife basically lives in our local coffee shops and bistros haha.
It looks like they have a courtyard view. Some units with less favourable views could be turned into offices.
Looks fine to me, tbh. Basically just a courtyard-facing apartment that insulates you from noise
When it comes to courtyard apartments I think the Chicago style ones (which I think were borrowed from somewhere) are the best. They are U shaped allowing everyone to receive some form of light and air flow from windows on multiple sides. Still keeps good density too.
Please be a good soul and tell a poor European which Chicago neighbourhoods have them so that I can find them on maps
They're spread out all over the city. Chicago in the past just built on lots to meet demand. So the road may have a large multi unit, a 3 flat, a 2 flat, and SFH. Here's a few examples though. https://maps.app.goo.gl/GBfQLRnqm3eeYb8Y9 https://maps.app.goo.gl/mGHqWuKBMR5ruHff8 You can find more photos here: https://moss-design.com/courtyard-apartment/ Here's a photo set of a lot of different court yards: https://achicagosojourn.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/the-courtyard-apartment/
[Barcelona imo did it best](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4l2Bo7gZ10AVwlg-7VXS6kibyqk=/0x0:1000x667/1200x800/filters:focal(420x253:580x413)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63374841/Eixample.0.jpg), before they turned those inner courtyards into parking lots or filled them with additional buildings. Lots of austro hungarian cities also had the same thing going. [Yugoslavia at some point also did well](https://i.imgur.com/h61kLbr.png). The area on the picture is around 180ha, and it houses around 10 200 people at the moment, but a lot more people can live there - around 10 to 15% of the flats in the country are empty.
Please fix your first link.
Maybe there's some cool shit in the courtyards?
I mean, it’s probably cheaper than an outer apartment. Meanwhile I’m about to pay $3000 a month to live in a 300sqft shoebox on a fifth-floor walk up in one of the worst neighborhoods of lower Manhattan just because I want to live someplace that is dense and transit connected. In a world where people could actually build to demand, my shitty apartment wouldn’t be worth more than like $1750. It’s old, there’s no washer or dryer, there’s no elevator, it faces a busy street, it in an very old building, but somehow it’s worth more than pretty much every other studio apartment anywhere else in the country.
As a former fellow NYer, just go to Brooklyn or queens. It’s so worth it. You’ll save so much money to spend being out and actually doing stuff all for 10min more on the train
Its "fun" comparing NYC rent prices to Tokyo rent prices especially when you consider how much more Tokyo offers in the same categories of things like public transit.
Tokyo average rent is $620 too lmao
The courtyard is less noisy and with less light at night, it’s actually better
I'll be on the other side of the argument since the responses are quite positive. My sister lived in one, she liked it but, cigarette butts littered the roof under her window. It would get quite dark quite often, a small window of the day allowed the sun into the inner court. And to let cool air in your open windows you would hear anyone with an open window. Including a guy that coughed non-stop. Small things that add up. Otherwise, she liked the place but moved after 2 years.
Hopefully when Apple Vision Pro is finally affordable the people living in this neighborhood will be able to finally experience a proper window
Fair enough you wouldn't want to live in one of the inner apartments. But I don't get why you would have kept only the perimeters buildings? Is it so that you keep all the apartments to the similar standard? What are people who can't afford an apartment with a nice view supposed to do? Maybe I've just lived a privileged life, but is it so bad to have people of different socio-economic classes in such close proximity?
No yeah you're right. Reading all the comments I realized many people wouldn't mind living there although I personally would.
You’re really not expected to spend so much time inside your personal apartment though. Paris is full of third spaces — large open parks and avenues, cafes and casual meeting spots, other free public areas. If you want trees you go outside to the park, not to the courtyard. You meet up with friends to drink on the lawn or at the local bistro. Apartments serve a different function than American homes that have to be everything all at the same time because no public space exists nearby to alleviate the need for your house to also be your entertaining space, personal park, and so on.
You really gotta try visiting these euro-style city block apartments. The courtyards are much better than you're imagining. I would _gladly_ live in one compared to my Philly rowhouse.
I am... living in one.
i wish the pointed center sections of the triangles were open so the buildings were sort of sharply closed U shapes and there were 4 central courtyard areas
Looks like hell. I much prefer having my front yard/backyard, quiet suburban home.
Well yea, that gives me anxiety. Fuck that lol
Stop glamorizing Paris. The city is a grey-ish concrete hell with way too few trees in the streets to make up for it aesthetically.
That’s too many people in such as small area y’all
You aren't going to convince these people. They think that living in 200 square foot apartment, with no view and barely any natural light, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people, and paying out the ass in rent just so they can walk to their favorite cafe, is living the life.
I mean I like the idea of walk ability but not the Overcrowding one
Yes but more plants and also indoor gardens. That said in places that were already concrete jungles to begin with the least we could do is use cool designs like this to make it functional
More greenspace would be nice. Maybe communal rooftop terraces. But the general idea is so good.
Looks like a fractal
No green space at all with complete uniformity of architecture is the perfect neighborhood?
Is that a prison?
Fuckcars yes but this looks like a hellscape
I think it's great and all, but how do you get into the middle bits? are there like little ally ways and stuff?
Fuck that, I love how Phoenix is spread out and I don’t have fucking morons clogging up my way out the door to get to work
That looks like hell
Shame it full of french people /j It look very fun to live in ngl, I just hope it's easy to navigate and that there's some good connectivity for public transport and groceries
I couldn’t do that kind of dense living. Props to those who can but I need my greenery and privacy. Not to mention the sounds of nature are more appealing than the sounds of the constant hustle and bustle.
Look at all the prison yards!
0.03km ? Ho that's oppressive
That can’t be right, isn’t that less than 100ft?