Four homes on sixteen cents

Sixteen cents is not much land for four homes. The obvious move on a plot that size is four identical units facing the same direction, sharing party walls, each looking at the back of the next. It is efficient and it is miserable to live in.

We spent most of the design time at 1008 avoiding it. The four homes ended up sitting at slightly different angles, each turned a few degrees off its neighbour. It sounds like a small thing. It is the whole project.

What the angles buy

Two things. First, no window looks directly into another, so nobody closes their curtains during the day and nobody ends up living in a dim room for the sake of privacy.

Second, the wedge-shaped gaps that open up between the houses become small private courts, one for each home. On a deep infill plan the middle of the house is the part that goes dark. These courts fix that without borrowing an inch from anyone.

Density is not the problem. Four houses all facing the same way is the problem.

All four were handed over in 2022. The families have since planted the shared entrance considerably better than we drew it, which is usually the sign that a place has been taken over properly.