Owner Occupied Duplex – On the Top or Bottom?

There are many advantages for a townhouse owner to occupy a lower duplex, or perhaps it is the top floor duplex they should seek, and while a very strong case can be made to put the owner of a townhouse on the lower floors, there are solid arguments for occupying the top two floors.  I, architect Nick Buccalo, will examine both possibilities and invite your comments on the issue.

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The Ultimate Shared Living Suites – FOR DEVELOPERS

This version is for the smaller walkup building of 25’x60′ in order to fit the programmatic components comfortably. It provides a way for a developer to accommodate more people within a building footprint and thus increase the yearly income.

The concept is simple, take what would normally be a three bedroom apartment and change it to 4 shared living suites where individuals get their own private suite, complete with a private bathroom, bedroom and living space, and then share only the kitchen and other building amenities.  For a 5 story walkup, the potential is for 19 ‘bedroom suites’ versus the conventional 5-3 bedroom apartments.  It is simple math from this point to understand that the suites are occupied with working adults while 2/3’s of the bedrooms from a standard apartment are occupied by children, or, that home office.

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Best Townhouse Plan for New Construction “‘8c’ Independent Party-Wall Prototype”

For new construction, and in this as other studies to create rental apartments, an Architect is going to be confronted by two likely scenarios, the adjacent buildings have existing party-walls with the property line running through it’s center, or, there are no adjacent buildings and thus new party-walls can be built directly over the property line.  In this version of our townhouse plan, we explore the ramifications of an existing party-wall that can not be used as it does not meet earthquake code requirements, or, a new building positioned it’s party-wall completely onto its own property.

This results in slightly less interior space, but also creates a unique situation where the joists can run from the front of the building to the back.  The design result, is a 2 bedroom apartment with a huge great room with 3 windows bringing in the light and air, something that most people in New York City, Chicago, Boston or any large city would love to have.

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Best Townhouse Plan for New Construction – “‘8b’ – Shared Party-Wall Prototype”

Building a townhouse from scratch has its advantages and results in a slightly different layout than the previous floor plans designed as retrofits into existing townhouses of varying sizes.  In new construction, typical FAR’s (Floor Area Ratio) allows for the length of the new structure on typical 100′ lots to be what it ideally wants to be.

In the this version we design the townhouse to have shared party-walls, thus giving the interior enough extra space that we can slightly shorten the building to 48′-4″, 1′-8″ less than the infill version in the next article.  This helps lower the cost of construction without sacrificing comfort, and provides a means to save ‘allowable square feet’ on every floor shift that savings to add an extra floor for a Great Room over looking a roof terrace.

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The Ultimate Townhouse Layout

The design challenge is to maximize the square footage within a typical 20’x45′ townhouse footprint while minimizing the lost space in public areas.  Sounds simple?  Haha, yeah sure.  To do so one needs to examine all the pieces to ensure they themselves are efficient, and then arrange those pieces in such a way to avoid wasted space and improve sizes of rooms based on their hierarchical importance.

So we want to minimize the public spaces, the hallways and push that area savings into the main rooms of the apartment.  At the same time we want to maximize the number of bedrooms, keep all plumbing and vent stacks in one area to minimize cost of construction, and keep everything nice and easy to build with simply arranged partitions, so the cost stays reasonable, and the time it takes to finish is quick.  Clean layouts means less confusion for contractors, thus avoiding mistakes.

Can we at SimpleTwig Architecture.llc do it?  We think we have and would like to present a clean, highly efficient apartment layout ready for most townhouses in New York City, Chicago and other urban areas, allowing the Home Owner to maximize their rent roll while providing their tenants with homes they will look forward to living in.

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Plans for 2 Duplexes and Cafe

A unique Brooklyn lot in that this property had two structures overlooking a city park, with exposures on 3 sides, SimpleTwig Architecture decided to make the most of the situation by creating a small cafe on the main street corner and providing outdoor porch seating between the structures, allowing for a substantial increase in available seating for the shop.

Further, both structures allowed for open floor plan duplexes, each with 2 bedrooms.  Together they maximize the rental capacity of the property and provide the community with an amenity of character which will be cherished for years to come.

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Embracing the Family Clan, for their Healthy Financial Future

With baby boomers reaching maturity, new responsibilities can become overwhelming in a struggling economy. With parents in retirement, children growing up but staying at home or leaving, the financial burden for each can strain the whole family’s finances to a breaking point.  Certainly if one finds themselves living paycheck to paycheck it is easy to make an argument for change.

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Galvanic Action Corrosion Prevention

A SimpleTwig Article: Galvanic Corrosion, sometimes referred to as Galvanic Action, describes the corrosion to a metal when that metal is in contact, either directly or with the help of a catalyst or another element, with another metal whose characteristics are not complimentary. Often two different metals can come in contact with one another without any corrosion, but some combinations do lead to corrosion and ultimately failure.  This can be critical to prevent ‘rusting’ and unsightly stains, to prevent water penetration when a flashing fails, or to even prevent parts of a building from falling apart when a fasteners like a screws fails.

We take a look at what it is and how to prevent this type of corrosion so our buildings will last many decades longer.

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Human Design: Eyelashes and Eyebrows

Architecture is fundamentally connected to humans. That which is not connected is not architecture.

To understand function and how it influences the way something looks, one need only look at the human machine, and in this article the eyelashes and eyebrows. While the conclusions here are based on observation they hold within them a fundamental logic which is hard to deny.

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