Given that most cities are comprised of residential areas, it?s surprising how few in-depth case studies exist of residential building types?which, more than ever, are fundamental to sound living. Thus, Katy Chey?s newly completed research project, Multi-Unit Housing in Urban Cities: 1800 to Present Day, is not only refreshing to read but a tremendously valuable tool for city planners, urban designers and architects.
33-35 Cheapside Street frontages in Birmingham, 1904.
Chey, an architect and lecturer at the Daniels School of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, has analysed a wide range of medium- to high-density housing types in cities around the world. Most of the 11 cities studied are north of the 40th parallel, apart from Hong Kong, Beijing and Tokyo. Typologies studied range from detached houses in Tokyo, row-houses in Birmingham, terraces in Hong Kong and denser forms elsewhere. Her in-depth documentation of each typology includes plans and vintage photographs, in most cases presented neutrally, without contextual information. It is helpful that Chey calls her case study ?multi-unit? rather than ?multi-family.? The latter is a presumptively loaded term still embedded in zoning legalese and real-estate pitches. From there, she has developed an almost botanical-like classification system of typologies, each with its defining characteristic features. Her encyclopedic findings, rendered in a neutral tone with sections and floor plans, is now ...