The gaps between single-family homes in the suburbs and in the city may be great concerning shape and massing, but in many ways they’re very similar. They provide the same sorts of rooms — living rooms, dining rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms, etc.. And they use layouts that maximize sun and views. However, their different contexts imply that suburban homes are low and spread out, while city homes are compact and vertical.
Both suburban and urban homes yearn for some type of outside area, but of course the former generally have much more of that than the latter. And while suburban open area is appropriate to kids and their recreation, city parks also serve this purpose, providing urban terraces another function.
This article examines three townhouses in the outside to the inside, with an eye on how they fit in the city — and provide their occupants a precious little open space.
The Turett Collaborative
Tribeca is one of Manhattan’s richest and most desirable neighborhoods, full of landmark buildings, a lot of them brick warehouses with big windows.
This building stock has influenced several new developments, such as this townhouse designed by Turett Collaborative Architects, to embrace huge windows instead of all-glass facades, as is the case in other parts of Manhattan.
The Turett Collaborative
The Tribeca Townhouse adds four stories to an existing two-story building. It’s a huge endeavor by New York City standards (six bedrooms, seven baths), but the articulation of the outside gives the impression that it is two buildings — a six-story mass and a two-story piece in the corner.
The Turett Collaborative
The architects took advantage of this low existing building to create a roof deck, but in addition they carved an opening to the next floor to create a terrace adjacent to the living area, seen here. Skylights help to bring sunlight to the living space and lower flooring.
The Turett Collaborative
Stairs in the carved-in terrace supply entry to the roof deck, in which residents can dine, sunbathe or perform anything else they like, knowing the windows overlooking the roof are their very own.
Sarah Jefferys Design
Across the East River in Brooklyn is the townhouse designed by Sarah Jeffreys Design. It’s located in the Boerum Hill neighborhood, a desirable location south of downtown Brooklyn and not too much in the borough’s Prospect Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted.
The four-story home is quite modern in its appearance, with big windows, metal cladding and wood slats put back from the front facade. The top floor is the most fascinating: A roof deck for the residents is highlighted through a framework of timber slats.
Sarah Jefferys Design
A living area tops the building and sits adjacent to the roof deck. A sliding wall unites the interior and the south-facing exterior. The timber slats help to frame the distant view, but they also color the interior from the setting sun.
Wheeler Kearns Architects
The third townhouse is in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood, north of downtown, between the Gold Coast and Lincoln Park. The region is full of enchanting old wood-frame homes, such as this one dating back to the 1870s. Wheeler Kearns Architects renovated the home, keeping up the front (per landmark guidelines), removing a two-story rear inclusion from the 1980s and gutting the interior.
Wheeler Kearns Architects
The architects created a very open design, utilizing the vertical circulation to help bring natural light to the middle of the home. Here we can see through the kitchen toward the back of the home.
Wheeler Kearns Architects
In the back of the home it’s clear the two-story addition had to move: A sizable outdoor area offsets the loss of enclosed square footage. Large expanses of glass also bring considerably more daylight to the home than the little, first windows on front altitude do.
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Layers of Old and New in Nyc