a Kingo Houses, site plan.

b Kingo Houses, typical unit plan.

# Kingo Houses

ELSINORE, 1956

Jørn Utzon

Building in Denmark has been somewhat outside the European mainstream of modern architecture. At the turn of the century a reaction to industrialization resulted in a bias in favor of national arts and crafts—a form of national romanticism. By the thirties people like Kay Fisker and C. F. Møller were making reference to the International Style in their Copenhagen housing projects: long low-rise, garden apartments with balconies and shops below. But many of the wartime and postwar architects abandoned any International Style overtones and reverted to a kind of arts and crafts version of housing, in which apartments were made to appear to be detached, freestanding single-family houses with steep sloping roofs and brick detail. Arne Jacobsen probably brought full-blown International Style architecture to Denmark with his glass and steel corporate buildings such as the SAS air terminal in Copenhagen of the early fifties. However, he remained in touch with the arts and crafts movement, and the worldwide popularity of “Danish Modern” in the fifties can perhaps be traced to Jacobsen’s furniture and the famous “egg” chairs. This national handicraft tradition was manifest in Jacobsen’s buildings as well. His Klampenborg terrace houses of 1950 seem to refer back to a traditional Danish architecture: brick buildings with sloping tile roofs and chimneys, with external spaces that are clearly defined and enclosed but arranged with a very open relation to nature in mind.

This combination of modern and traditional vocabulary seems to be a part of Utzon's architecture as well. Although probably eschewing the Bauhaus reference that Jacobsen might have made and clearly rejecting the rather parochial brand of national housing characteristic of postwar Denmark, Utzon still looks at traditional notions through the eyes of a modernist. His own house of 1952, a long, low, frame building with brick walls and expansive glass privately enconced in a forest clearing, is but a modern version of the traditional Danish farmhouse—rectangular, brick, sprawling, but cozy.

Similarly, the Elsinore project of 1956 and the court houses at Fredensborg of 1962 attempt to fuse modern needs with traditional ideas. Sixty-three separate houses are grouped together on a gently undulating site. Consolidated to achieve common automobile access, collective open space, and building economy, the farmhouse—with its sloping tile roof, dominant chimney, and same-sized windows—has here been transformed to meet a modern need. The resulting irregular site plan establishes several different typical orientations and building connections. Houses are arranged in a loose group with restricted access for the car and an entry on one side; the other side opens to a pond, a slope, or some other aspect of a very picturesque setting. A more or less random grouping results, but the impression is of repetitive units.

Although there are several different plans, each house has a courtyard about 50 feet square that is defined by a brick wall. Attached to two walls of the court and opening onto it is an L-shaped house; a tile roof slopes from the top

45

a Winscombe Street houses, plans. Neave Brown, London, 1966.

b Fleet Road terrace housing, section.

two-story unit or maisonette above, small one-floor unit or flat below, balcony above, terraces below, and a narrow space providing entrance to the lower units. Indeed, Fleet Road is simply a smaller, modern version of the terrace house, with integral parking below.

Set into a neighborhood of intersecting streets and existing buildings, including a four-story sea cadets' training center, Fleet Road combines about seven units into six two- and three-story, parallel rows of terrace apartments. Sets of two rows of units are serviced from a central pedestrian walkway. The three-story row contains two-story, three-bedroom maisonettes on top and one-bedroom flats below. The top floor of the maisonette, the living room area, opens to a balcony, while the entry level connects across the walkway to a semiprivate terrace on the roof of the apartment on the opposite side. Access to the one-bedroom units below is from the walkway. These lower apartments open directly to private courtyards either at grade or on top of the adjacent parking structure. The lower walkway is open except where the bridges above cross to the terraces, allowing light to penetrate down to the lower level. The two-bedroom unit is a split-level variation of the one-bedroom unit, with entrance at a grade to the kitchen and with stairs up half a level to the bedrooms and down half a level to the living room, which also opens to a private courtyard.

The plan, peculiar to the terrace house, that makes the dining area part of an enlarged kitchen has been incorporated into Fleet Road, although the living room has been moved to the upper level of the maisonette to form an adult suite with the master bedroom. This is a strategy that Neave Brown also employed in 1966 with his own houses at 19 Winscombe Street.

Fleet Road is an important prototype because it demonstrates that a high-density form of housing with outdoor space for each dwelling can be achieved without giving up individual privacy. This project may be seen as a modern version of an existing, traditional form of housing—the terrace house—designed to be a discrete, ameliorative insertion achieved without the destruction of the urban housing fabric that accompanied so much housing construction of the past thirty years. Although Fleet Road was preceded by other examples of high-density, low-rise housing such as the Amis, Howell, Killick, and Partridge rowhouses in Hampstead of 1956 and Brown's Winscombe Street houses, this project was significant as a model for the return to a more traditional building form as the basic housing type.

a Typical Bedford Square house, plans and section.

b Fleet Road terrace housing, site plan.

# Fleet Road Terrace Housing

LONDON, 1967

Neave Brown

Postwar housing in London was frequently a mixture of high-rise slabs or towers and rowhouses usually scattered loosely about the larger buildings. This pattern was begun with the Highpoint blocks by the Tecton group in 1933 and dominated most housing development after about 1947. Examples include Churchill Gardens by Powell and Moya (1947), the Golden Lane estate by Chamberlin, Powell, and Bon (1953), and the Roehampton and Alton estates done by teams of architects for the London County Council (1953). Many of the building and urban ideas applied in these projects were derived from Le Corbusier's great theoretical works of the twenties and thirties, Plan Voisin and La Ville Radieuse, which established a precedent for building large towers and slabs that are freestanding in spaces carved from the existing city.

Criticism of this pattern of housing was widespread, centering on sociological facts and realistic observations about the nature of urban change. Family living in high-rise buildings was a problem in spite of the seductive images of rooftop nursery school playgrounds, running tracks, and buildings that stood freely in undefiled green countryside—images created by Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation at Marseilles. Other criticism, perhaps more important, drew attention to the effect of this kind of building pattern on the "physique" of the city. A skeptical attitude was emerging about an urbanism that was destructive of the existing urban fabric. Traditionally, housing in the city formed a more or less neutral background of repetitive buildings, a texture that was accentuated by a city's special institutions and public buildings. Although the "redent" blocks of Le Corbusier's Ville Radieuse conformed to this tradition, it was the tall buildings, the towers of Plan Voisin and the Unité at Marseilles, that became the prototypes for much of the housing that was to inundate postwar London.

The most common form of housing in London was the terrace house, the English equivalent of the rowhouse. Usually a three- or four-story party-wall structure, the terrace house was set back a few feet from the sidewalk by steps and small gardens in front and another behind, and established a continuous surface along the street. The larger terrace houses were serviced from the rear by an alley called the "mews," which also gave access to the stables along the alley. Typically, there were small apartments above the stables or garages, a row of buildings that was gradually converted to residential use. The resulting pattern was parallel rows of housing with open space between. The buildings to one side were usually larger and taller than the others, and each unit opened to a small, private outdoor space.

Access to the terrace house was up a few steps from the street to the front door and entrance hall. Although there were many plan variations, in most cases the living room fronted the street and a large combination kitchen and dining area opened to the rear garden. The stair from the entrance hall led to the bedrooms on one or two levels above. A basement on the half-level below

a

b

74
Unité d'Habitation, Marseilles. Le Corbusier, 1952.

75
Apartment block, Neuwil-Wohlen, Switzerland. Metron, 1962.

76
Apartment block, Munich. Fred Angerer, 1960.

74

Double-loaded system; corridor every third floor. Le Corbusier's section (74), with corridors every third floor, also uses a system of interlocking units. Unlike Lincoln Estate, however, the living room has a two-story volume and the bedrooms above run through the building. Entrance to one unit is at the living room level and in the other at the balcony level, with the double-orientation part of the apartment below. This is a much-copied scheme; other variations include the Neuwil block (75) by the Metron group of 1962 (although the units here do not interlock) and the Angerer slab at Munich of 1960 (76), a similar type with entrance off the corridor to one unit and stairs to units above and below. Each apartment here, like the Metron slab, is only one floor high. Sert follows this pattern in Peabody Terrace, the married students' housing at Harvard (43), one of the few alternate-level corridor buildings built in the United States until very recently.

Double-Loaded Split-Level Systems

A final variation of the double-loaded corridor system is the split-level type. It comes with corridors every second and third floor or with the corridor in alternating positions in the slab. The idea of the split-level scheme is that one has to climb stairs up or down only one-half level from the corridor. Generally, both single- and double-orientation units are used to get a mix of large and small apartments. The smaller units are usually single-loaded along one side of the corridor while the larger are split-level, usually with sleeping spaces on one side and living area on the other for a double-orientation, dumbbell type.

75

Double-loaded split-level system; corridor every second floor, alternating position. An example of this type is the apartment house in Germany by Schmiedel of 1960 (49), where the corridor is always double-loaded but asymmetrically positioned in section in alternating fashion.

76

72
December Apartments, Caracas. Carlos Villaneuva, 1956.

73
Nytorp apartments, Malmö, Sweden. Jaenecke and Samuelson, 1959.

Sometimes there are maisonettes at the corridor level with a smaller apartment below, sometimes there are larger units below. This is strictly a low-income housing type except where the maisonette is used, and it is typical of high-density, low-income public housing such as Park Hill (2). Slabs with a single-loaded corridor only every fourth floor are quite unusual because few building codes allow such a considerable inconvenience. However, this kind of building is sometimes built in South America; the Villaneuva slab in Caracas, the December Apartments (72), is one example.

Double-Loaded Corridor Systems

Double-loaded corridor slabs are more numerous than the single-loaded type, and a greater variety of types are possible. Able to accommodate either single-orientation units (corridor every floor) or double-orientation units (skip-stop), this building type has much greater flexibility than single-loaded buildings. Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation at Marseilles of 1952 (46) popularized the double-loaded, skip-stop section, and it appears frequently thereafter in many countries.

Double-loaded system; corridor every floor. Double-loaded slabs with a corridor every floor are especially sophisticated, popular, and practical in the United States, where fire codes until recently rendered skip-stop systems virtually impossible. This type of building is Mies van der Rohe's stock-in-trade. His Lake Shore apartments in Chicago of 1948 (7) and the apartments in Baltimore (6) are typical and set the pattern for much that was to follow—not only in the organization but also in the image of the expensive, glass-walled residential skyscraper. Although not as popular in Europe, similar types such as the Nytorp slab in Malmö by Jaenecke and Samuelson (73) do on occasion appear.

Double-loaded system; corridor every second floor. By far the more common double-loaded types follow the Marseilles Unité example, with corridors every second or third floor. The Lincoln Estate slab by Martin of 1960 in London (5) uses a system of corridors every other floor and an interlocking system of two-level units with living room at corridor level and internal stairs to bedrooms above on the opposite side of the building.

72

73

21

URBAN HOUSING

HIGH-RISE ELEVATION

SECTION

PLAN

PROJECT

200 S.F./R.R.

$$ \frac{250}{200} \times 100 = 125 \text{ D.us} $$

CONVENTIONAL

250 S.F./R.R.

100 D.us

<table><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">APARTMENT TYPE</th><th rowspan="2">L.R. B.D.S</th><th rowspan="2">KITCHEN</th><th rowspan="2">1ST BR</th><th rowspan="2">2ND BR</th><th rowspan="2">3RD BR</th><th rowspan="2">4TH BR</th><th rowspan="2">TOTAL ROOM AREA</th><th rowspan="2">R.R.</th><th colspan="2">GROSS AREA / D.U.</th></tr><tr><th>PROJECT</th><th>CONV.</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>0 BR</td><td>200 85</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>285</td><td>2 1/2</td><td>500</td><td>625</td></tr><tr><td>1 BR</td><td>220 60</td><td>150</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>430</td><td>3 1/2</td><td>700</td><td>875</td></tr><tr><td>2 BR</td><td>250 60</td><td>150</td><td>130</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>590</td><td>4 1/2</td><td>900</td><td>1125</td></tr><tr><td>3 BR</td><td>270 70</td><td>150</td><td>130</td><td>130</td><td>-</td><td>-</td><td>750</td><td>5 1/2</td><td>1100</td><td>1375</td></tr><tr><td>4 BR</td><td>290 75</td><td>150</td><td>130</td><td>130</td><td>130</td><td>-</td><td>905</td><td>6 1/2</td><td>1300</td><td>1625</td></tr></tbody></table>

LOW-RISE ELEVATION

SECTION (A+A)

PLAN

The two sets of elevations and sections at left illustrate a generalized high-rise building that might be built with this system, and a generalized low-rise building. The shaded areas of the plans marked A, A2, and B, illustrate the three basic and repetitive "clusters" out of which the buildings can be generated. The A2 clusters contain the vertical transportation, either stairs or elevators. The small a-a, b-b, and c-c plan marks on the sections refer to the plans a-a, b-b, and c-c on page 133, showing where those plans are located. The chart is a statistical comparison of a typical urban design group system apartment building with a similar conventional building.

## size of apartments.

Using about 11 different elements per apartment, (an element is a part or group of parts that can be conveniently handled in one crane lift) the Urban Design Group system can generate one-through six-bedroom apartments of unlimited "mix," in either high-rise or low-rise arrangements. And, unlike some project housing, the apartments themselves look like they would be fun to live in, and the possible facade expressions look anything but dull.

URBAN DESIGN GROUP SYSTEMS BUILDING, The Urban Design Group of the New York City Planning Department: Jonathan Barnett, A.I.A., director of design; Ajyzk Jagoda, principal urban designer and architect. Structural consultant: Mario Salvatoreo; mechanical consultant: Joseph R. Loring Associates; John A. Van Deusen, transportation systems. Drawings by Martin Dorf, assistant urban designer, and Paul Wang; rendering by Roy Lordahl.

copyright © 1971 by Ajyzk Jagoda

ISOMETRIC SECTION

ARCHITECTURAL RECORD April 1971

13

## Detached houses

Two detached house plans, one showing a one story, three bedroom house, the other showing a two story, three bedroom house with a “cathedral” ceiling over the living room.

## Townhouses

Two alternative townhouse plans, one showing a four-bedroom scheme in which two of the bedrooms open out onto a second story deck, the other showing a three bedroom scheme which permits a “cathedral” ceiling over the living room.

## Garden apartments

Apartment plans, showing one story, two bedroom units at the ground floor and three bedroom duplexes at the second and third stories.

## Detached-attached houses

Front house is a three bedroom unit with a "cathedral" ceiling over the living room and a large rear yard containing nearly all the open space on the lot. Back house, also a three-bedroom unit with a "cathedral" ceiling over the living room, has its yard in front.

Using three basic apartment "clusters"—the A cluster, the A2 cluster and the B cluster, —one-through six-bedroom units can be generated in nearly unlimited ratios. Below is an isometric perspective of an A cluster combined with another A cluster to create efficiency through three-bedroom apartments. Corridors occur every third floor, as shown, and the plans of various apartment types are related to their position in the isometric.

HIGH-RISE ELEVATION

PLAN

LOW-RISE ELEVATION

PLAN

SE HIGH DENSITY HOUSING

S

## Alternative Site Configurations in the New York City Grid

The initial prototype configuration was based on the typical mid-town avenue and street hierarchy. The proto-typical single block layout anticipated a form of mixed development in which medium to high rise structures are built on the avenues with the low rise high density development being restricted to the cross streets.

In the multiple block layout a pattern of alternative street modifications was envisaged in which every other street would become a controlled street of narrower width than normal, with chevron parking ranged on either side of the central access. Given a fixed density of between 70 to 90 units per acre and excluding any high density development on the avenues, this controlled street approach would appear to be capable of yielding as much as 50% parking at grade within the grid.

## Typical Cluster

A detail of the multiple block layout, showing location of the 2 and 3 bedroom street duplexes and 3 and 4 bedroom mews duplexes. Entrances to the mews spaces are via a passage through the street block at one end and an entry past a public stoop and laundry at the other. It was intended that the stoop and laundry should provide some form of spontaneous surveillance over this entry.

16

# Organizing Issues and Prototypical Elements

This prototype based on the constraints of a typical 200 foot by 800 foot New York City block was designed to establish the following conditions.

1. To group dwellings on the block in such a way as to both preserve the spatial profile of the street and at the same time to create a sense of neighborhood.

2. To arrange for as many private entrances as possible to open directly off the street and at the same time to minimize undesignated internal space.

3. To control the size and location of play spaces for young children and to provide for their direct surveillance from the dwelling.

4. To minimize unseen-non-active places and to promote easy recognition of neighbors, through limited access and the provision of 'spontaneous' surveillance over entry to the cluster.

5. To provide private exterior spaces (yards) for as many units as possible and to clearly define and articulate in respect of use not only public and private spaces but also semi-public spaces such as stops.

6. To provide accessible and secure storage for bicycles, carriages, snow tires, etc.

7. To assure reasonable orientation for at least one living space plus through ventilation for all units.

8. To provide at least two separate living spaces for the larger family units so as to allow for the separation of different living activities and to accommodate certain variations in life style.

9. To limit the walk up access to two and one half floors from the street level to the highest and smallest apartments.

10. To limit walking distance from parking space to unit to somewhere within the neighborhood of 100 feet.

As projected the prototype was to consist of four main elements: the street unit, the mews unit, the mews itself and the public stoop in relation to the inset parking.

STATE OF THE ART HOUSING

S

expansive exterior areas
no domain or spatial definition
large user population
minimal recognition of neighbors

no visual orural contact
children play areas remote from dwelling
undesirably close to play areas
difficult to assign or find children

minimal recognition of neighbors
dangerous inventors, corridors & yards
unseen and inactive spaces
residents related from activity

uplift of elevators, lobbies & corridors
undesigned territories & responsibilities
children play in circulation
materials offer minimal resilience

no useful privates exterior space
no private outdoor storage
isolation from social gathering places
many units not directly sunlight or
through ventilation

blocks sun to outdoor spaces
blocks views to outdoor spaces
usually out of scale with neighborhood
inappropriate to needs & expectations of users
identifies low income populations visually

dwellings force single lifestyle on all users
room uses rigidly fixed
inappropriate to site variations
appropriate only for narrow range of sites

LOW RISE HIGH DENSITY HOUSING

S

Alternative Site Configurations
New York City Grid

The initial prototype configuration based on the typical mid-town a street hierarchy. The proto-typic block layout anticipated a form of development in which medium to large structures are built on the average with the low rise high density de
being restricted to
In the multiple blocks alternative street networks envisaged in which would become a common narrower width that chevron parking radiates the central access of between 70 to 90 excluding any higher on the avenues, this approach would allow yielding as much area within the grid.

Typical Cluster

A detail of the multi
showing location of
distinct mews duplexes and
spaces are via a
street block at one
public stoop and la
was intended that
should provide sor
surveillance over the

Low Rise High Density Prototype

The Institute for Architecture
and Urban Studies

Kenneth Frampton
Peter Wolf

The New York State Urban Development
Corporation

Theodore Liebman
Anthony Pangaro
J. M. Kirkland

Exhibition

Models

Latif Abdulmalik, Randall Korman,
George Raustiala, Jr.

Drawings

Victor Caliandro, Carl Larson, Glen Olin,
Paul Rosen, Peter Saitta,
Thomas Schumacher

As the site model on the opposite page indicated the initial prototype was predicated on a system of inset off street parking, shown in the top left hand corner. The alternative to this system was to have been chevron parking, off a controlled street of narrower width, shown at the bottom on the right in the test application to the Brooklyn site these parking principles had to be abandoned due to the necessity to park in groups. Similarly the prototypical units themselves shown on this page were subject to modification particularly in respect of fenestration and means of access. The New York State fire code would not permit the continuous cross wall to cross wall fenestration shown in both the street and mews prototypes. By a similar token it was not possible to project the stoop access stairs. out on to the sidewalk as shown in the street prototype. The stringent economic development of the prototype in relation to mix and density requirements also involved the loss of private outside open space, in the form of balconies, to the two layers of apartments over the street duplexes.

Low Rise High Density Prototype:
Prototypical Unit Types Above-street

Typical Street Unit Section

Prototypical Street Unit

The prototypical 39 foot square street unit
consists of a 2 bedroom duplex and
3 bedroom duplex on the two lower floors,
each half sunk into the ground. Each of
the upper floors accommodates a
1 bedroom and a 2 bedroom apartment.
The 2 and 1 bedroom apartments on the
upper levels are fed by a central public
stair which works on a scissor principle
in order to provide an alternative means
of escape, via the lower level to the street.
A bridge link to the mews units at roof
level is provided in the prototypical
version in order to give escape access
to the public stairs of the street units.
These escapes were later found to be
unnecessary. The plans on this page also
show details of the mews entry, where
the adjacent unit at the elevated grade
level is a 2 room apartment.

Ground Floor /
Typical 2 / 3 Bedroom Duplexes

First Floor /
Atypical 1 Bedroom Entry Apartment

Second Floor /
Typical 1 / 2 Bedroom Apartment