Fwd: Bayview facades and floor plans

Interesting, very interesting to me. The email isn’t that well for matted, but is worth reading.

Rick

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Sherman <[email protected]>
> Subject: Bayview facades and floor plans
> Date: December 5, 2013 at 1:06:48 PM PST
> To: undisclosed-recipients:;
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> Welcome to our fourth message. We've already sent you The Crisis of the Anthropocene, the Creation Care Quiz, and the Bayview project executive summary.
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> The old quarry site gives us a chance to design a coherent neighborhood. Sustainability and affordability constrain the kind of floor plans that we should use. 
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> The most visible aspect of the buildings will be the facades. We have looked into using neo-Victorian design concepts, based on research on the Victorians in the city of Alameda, California, and books about the "painted ladies." So far, we (in this case, Au Ta) have done sketch-ups of a six-plex of two-bedroom flats and a three-bedroom townhouse. Any consistent well-executed design scheme could work, but we p;an to get comments from likely buyers on any concept to enhance marketability.
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> Next email we will show you some street views that we did of the village square and a walking street. 
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> The 3-bedroom townhouse:
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> You have to imagine this townhouse as a row house with buildings of similar height but different widths on either side. Also, the colors, fenestration, entry and wall decorations will vary among buildings. The painting concept is to use three colors, a soft color for the walls, a strong color for the trim, and a bright highlighting color here and there. 
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> The 3-bedroom townhouse floor plan: 
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> Dave Jacobson and I did many, many floor plans, for studios, and 1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-bedroom units. This 3-bedroom floor plan, like all the others, is rectangular. Former President Jimmy Carter makes a point of having all of his Habitat for Humanity floor plans be rectangular because it saves a lot of money. Rectangular is affordable. The townhouse floor plans also have the same depth, and vary only in width, again simplifying construction and lowering costs. To break up the street view, some of these row houses may be offset from each other by one foot. 
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> For people who love floor plans, you'll see some really neat ideas here. First of all, the porch is pulled back into the building for weather protection, but also gives immediate access to bicycle parking, a half bath, coat closet, stairs, and flex space. 
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> The other thing is the stairway: it's amazing how little space stairways take up in a 2-floor unit and how much in a 3-floor unit because of the need, on the second floor, to get from the top of the first floor arrival to the bottom of the third floor departure. The solution in this floor plan is to have this hallway function go through the living, kitchen, and dining areas. 
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> Given the narrow width of this townhouse, 16 feet, it is realistic to have only two bedrooms on the top floor. It is also logical to maximize the space for the living, kitchen and dining areas on one floor. So the logic of this townhouse is to put the third bedroom on the ground floor. Now, because this bedroom can be accessed so easily from the street, it can be used for other purposes besides a family bedroom:  as a live-work area, guest bedroom, home office, workshop, or in-law unit (you can add a kitchen). 
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> Only the exterior walls are structural, and the front door, stairway and utility core are fixed. Otherwise, the interior uses are flexible. For example, the floor plan shown has a lot of bathrooms - 3.5 bathrooms for a 3-bedroom unit. A buyer might, for example, not want so much bathroom or the walk-in closet and instead could get bigger bedrooms on the top floor by having just one bathroom and smaller closets.  
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> The push-outs on the back and the bay windows on the front are also optional. The balcony for the living room may also be optional, depending on the building code and planning department. You get a sense of how this 3-bedroom townhouse has a very affordable and sustainable basic plan with quite a few options to meet different needs. 
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> The six-plex flats:
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> The color here kind of POPS OUT at you maybe a little too much with the dark red and contrasting bright gold highlights. The same neo-Victorian ideas are used for the trim around the balconies, windows, doors, and stairwell. This building has three identical 2-bedroom flats on the left, and three on the right; in some cases 2-bedroom, 2-bath, and in other cases 2-bedroom, 1-bath units. A central stairway provides efficient access to the units: two per floor, front doors left and right. Like the entry to the 3-bedroom unit, this provides protection from the weather. 
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> The two-bedroom floor plans in the six-plex building: 
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> This floor plan may seem compact and could be bigger, to be determined by market research. The diagram shows how the stairwell and front door fit into the larger building. The hallway is used efficiently to provide access to a closet, laundry, and bathroom. The layout does not show a possible bicycle parking area to the right of the front door; the balcony could also serve this function.  
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> -- Sherman Lewis, President 
> Hayward Area Planning Association 
> [email protected] 510-538-3692

--
Richard Risemberg
http://www.bicyclefixation.com
http://www.SustainableCityNews.com
http://gridlogisticsinc.com
http://www.rickrise.com