Welcome to Design Updates, a special section of the Affordable Housing Design Advisor. Each month this section will feature a short article - or "update" - with real-world examples of great design in affordable housing developments. Each update will illustrate where and how good design has made a real difference in creating affordable housing that works: for residents, for neighbors and for the community as a whole.

The purpose of the updates is to help all the stakeholders involved in community development learn more about the meaning and value of good design and, more importantly, to see how a commitment to good design can add value - not cost - to affordable housing developments. Each Update in the series is part of a broader initiative called the Campaign for Excellence in Affordable Housing Design.


RELATED DESIGN ADVISOR PAGES
  • Vehicle/Pedestrian Interaction
  • Site Entry and Circulation
  • Access and Surveillance

    ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

  • DESIGN MATTERS contains a catalog of exemplary affordable housing developments throughout the U. S built between 1980 and 2000.

    • Update #19: Optimizing Driver/Pedestrian Interaction by Design

    One of the more important things to take into consideration when you are making decisions about parking is the interaction between drivers and pedestrians. Obviously this is first and foremost an issue of safety: the less often that the two types of paths have to cross, the better. And where they do cross, it is important that you reinforce the priority of the pedestrian. But it is not just about separation. The drivers on your site are also the pedestrians on your site, as soon as they get out of their cars. It is important to look at this issue in a positive way too, and ask how to make the transition from being a driver to a pedestrian - and vice versa - a pleasant and convenient one

    One strategy for solving this interaction is illustrated by the Matsusaka Townhomes in Tacoma, Washington, which is home to 26 families with very low to low incomes. This plan has been colored to show where the residents drive their automobiles and park them (yellow), and how they walk between their parking spots and their front doors (red). This kind of colored diagram is very useful during all phases of design. If you choose a strategy for solving the pedestrian and automobile interaction early in your design process with a clear diagram, you can check back against that diagram throughout the development process. There is a good chance that the diagram will change somewhat over time, and it's important to notice when it does - to make sure that any changes are for the better.

    One of the key decisions that the design team made for this site circulation design is the placement of the play area. They placed it between the sidewalks and the parking for obvious reasons of safety. If the play area was on the other side of the parking, residents might be able to park closer to their units, but children would have to cross traffic unnecessarily to reach the playground. The resulting design makes the play area easy to access from - and in plain view of - most of the units in the development. It also helps make circulating through the site, especially alongside the play area, a pleasant and safe experience.

    Another development which handles the interaction between drivers and pedestrians well is Tuscany Villa/Villa Calabria in Davis, California. In this diagram, the colors have been switched. The red shows the places to drive and park, the yellow shows the pedestrian walks.

    Since this development is for both families and seniors with very low to low incomes, it wasn't appropriate to put all the parking in one location that might be a long distance from some of the units. Instead, the parking is distributed throughout the site, making it readily accessible from every unit. Thoughtful design makes all this parking "work" and keeps it from overwhelming the buildings and the development as a whole.

    Notice, for example, how vehicles are handled - by design - at the very center of the site, where pedestrians and drivers would most often cross paths. Imagine driving through the site from top to the bottom, right through the middle. Where would you most expect to see someone walking across the driveway? Where would you need to slow down the most? This is where the design team has visually and physically constricted the driveway with buildings and trees, eliminating parking and producing an obvious pedestrian zone where drivers need to be careful. Although the scattered layout of the parking means that most residents don't need to cross traffic at all to reach their own units, when they do need to go from one side of the development to the other, the point of crossing is safe and pleasant - by design.

    As you walk and drive around your community, make note of how you interact with drivers when you are walking and with pedestrians when you are driving. Some of the interactions will be comfortable, some will be awkward, and some will feel dangerous. If you think about the design of the places that provoked these responses, you will begin to develop a mental library of strategies for solving the same interactions in your next affordable housing development.


     
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