Nicely done Austin! Hopefully many more people will see these episodes and learn about the movement of New Urbanism. It feels like a no brainer, especially if you’re raising a family, to want to live in a community that is connected and built to sustain life and create real experiences. Great job!
“Double Headshot” 9:06 😂 But for real, love what you guys do and how you approach it. The balance. Arlington, VA. It’s tough seeing brick-on-all-sides or characterful homes torn down. It’s even harder when they are replaced by $2-3m 5,000sqft homes with 7 bedrooms with only half decent façades and builders grade (no offense) siding everywhere else. Would love to see what you all could do in a place like Leesburg, VA. Blending +200yo historic small town with new TND principles.
Double head shot? Can’t figure out what you mean haha. Yea that’s rough to watch. We see it here too. Though probably not as nice original houses all y’all have up there.
@@BuildingCulture lol, the kids in the background nailing their friend in the head with a soccer ball. Twice. Yup, but such is progress. It’s a weird mix around the DC/Northern VA area. But ironically there’s a growing interest in small town community development places like Loudoun County (the supposed wealthiest county in America)
Hi Building Culture, this video really gives me confidents on the future of community, because thanks to you and your videos, we are now many steps closer to figure out a practicable solution! I also checked out your other social media platforms, if you can talk more about craftsmanship, material, and design concepts as a builder. I also think it would be helpful if you collectively make some videos which inspired from some of your replies on x , such as some arguments about loneliness, technology, economy or culture. A video that puts two opposite arguments helps more people understand, especially for those who aren't in direct interest in construction. Thank you!
Hey much appreciated!! Keep doing what you’re doing :) Every person talking about stuff like this, especially who work in the field, is a HUGE deal! We need more architects/planners/developers who get this!
Beautiful neighborhood, but I am curious, if there's ever a fire, what will prevent the spread since the houses are so close together? Love the work you guys are doing!
Thank you! Many ways to solve for fire today whether materials, sprinkling, and just shorter fire responses. A house caught fire under construction here last year, burned down, and no issues elsewhere.
This is an exemplary model for planning a suburdan area. You said its about a mile from downtown and Id like to ask if theres a public transit system in place to service these peoples access to the area? On a nice day thats an acceptable walk for any of your needs but in bad weather that would be a pain. Additionally, I assume this is all new construction/development. What are your thoughts on revitalizing legacy areas? Greenspace and bike lanes are talked about at naseum in the civil eng and architectural world these days but its an extraordinary give and take. For instance, the addition of better side walks and a bike lane will reduce the throughput of your road. Now, the addition of greenspade will get rid of houses and reduce the roads demand. But people still have to live somewhere so that means the urban areas might require more highrise apartments. Of course, you could continue sprawling the suburban area in the same manor, but that comes at the cost of transportation issues.
Great thoughts. They are working on transit but will likely be bike lanes and bus stops over time. Change is hard! But that’s coming. Yes, all new construction. Infill is hard! Doing some of that now too. It’s a messy and long term game but necessary.
We generally are against a things over 4-6 stories, at least in mid-west. Not never, just not necessary usually. 2 - 4 stories is ideal for Oklahoma imo for most part
This is a great video and love the concepts generally speaking. From my experience of living in a development with garages in the back yards in half the neighborhood (it was on the state line and the other half had front-facing garages), it actually decreased the amount of interaction with our neighbors. Because everyone would come and go through the back yard which had privacy fences, you’d never bump into your neighbors and stop to chat. Across the state line there were always people hanging in the front driveways playing with the kids and the sense of community in that part of the neighborhood was palpable. Ugly as they might be I’d rather have a front-facing garage (attached or not) just for that reason. Looking forward to the next episode!
That’s a fair point! Have seen this ourselves actually. You are right: it still depends on neighborhood. In this neighborhood everyone is always out walking, at park, pool, coffee shop, etc, so lots of reasons to go out front. But if there aren’t good reasons? Exactly: no one sees each other.
@@BuildingCulture that makes sense! My old neighborhood had no commercial development involved at the time (they started after we left with a coffee shop, pizza spot etc) so maybe that’s changed now. Good food for thought.
Did not just bikes influence you? I do hope so. This is awesome seeing you talk about the stuff that’s already been implemented in the Netherlands for decades. We’ve also built our roads for cyclists and so so so much more.
@@BuildingCulture good to see, i work for CROW ( a company making the design manuals for streets, roads, materials and environments) and yes the US has so many outdated design guidelines and systems like: electrical safety, fire safety, building codes, building efficiency codes, etc. Hopefully these’ll get addressed in the next few year 🙏
Ugh, that guy is such a detriment to the TND movement in the USA (and Canada). Also, Building Culture has been at this much longer than that UA-cam channel has been around. I understand where you are coining from, and there’s certainly good ideas to take from European urban centers. But North America will never be that, nor should it strive to be. It can be better though…
@@ChuckThree why shouldn’t it strive to be like that? Prior to WW2 pretty much every American and Canadian city was perfectly walkable. Why not do that again by changing what they build today? You know we will all go down if the US doesn’t change this cause their way of building and living is killing people, their wallets and the planet.
The 8-foot fence on the left seems out of place with human-centric (which I would assume also means community-building) design in the section on privacy. The porch, I get. The fence, not so much. I was glad to see bike parking near the end. Was wondering where those were. This is similar to the Prospect neighborhood in Longmont. So what was here before the neighborhood was built? And is it integrated in with the neighborhood next door? The Google overview is an old pass by that didn't include any kinds of integration with neighbors.
Complex issue, but will be connected at some point. I genuinely believe they’re doing the best they can. Agreed on fence not being very nice. It will come down some day.
On the original model, the buildings seem to look a lot different from what they are now, the old ones had red roofs and looked like older structures, are y’all going to morph into that style as you get closer to the Ferris wheel, or are y’all going to keep the same colorful style? Because I’m fine with either one, but there are some buildings in the old model that I would want to see, there are some buildings that looked like town halls, they had nice crafted designs, I would like to see those buildings happen, maybe you could mix up the style, keep the same almost victorian design of the old one, but color it like the new design.
I appreciate and support the increase in craftsmanship and quality, but I would never spend my money on a house like that. There's zero space on the lot for anything but the house. I would take a few acres of land with plenty of trees over a five minute walk to the nearest Brewery any day.
Totally get it. And that should 100% exist. Heck, we might want that some day. But a lot of people just want better neighborhoods and a real community and a different lifestyle. And it so happens to take up quite a bit less space…where the suburbs themselves could become a good bit less crowded and substantially more pleasant if done well. A lot of people in the suburbs talk about traffic right? Way to solve for that is to build fewer suburbs. But our point with this video is: we’re not even able to build what many people want because it is arbitrarily illegal.
@@BuildingCulture Absolutely, there should be more options when it comes to zoning. Obviously, there needs to be some level of zoning control, or else you end up with a mess like Huston, but developers and architects should be free to try new concepts or go back to old ones as the case may be.
I absolutely respect the various desires that people have for how they would want to live, but one thing I think that’s always missing from this discussion are the cost differences. Most styles of less-than-urban living have been so subsidized in so many ways, that when the costs aren’t applied to a home/landowner, owning lots of land sounds like the obvious answer. But when factoring in the per-lot costs of utilities, transportation infrastructure, fire and police coverage, (and those costs actually being disbursed fairly to service-users based on the cost to service their lot) I think a lot of people would make a different decision than they would today. Of course, not everyone, so I definitely think options are needed, but the convo is missing something if we’re not talking about *actual* cost to service and make usable
@@willhenke03 have you actually built in a rural area before? Utility companies are either for profit companies or local Co-ops; and they charge charge crazy amounts, I have seen bills over 30K for installing a new service a few hundred yards from the nearest pole. Local government services aren't much better. We already have county sheriffs , fire is volunteer, ambulances are run by EMSA which is corporate, so no problems there. Regardless, it's not the governments to dictate how people live, if people want a suburban or rural life style, it's on the government to accommodate the will of the people not the other way around. Personally I'm planning on going completely of grid, screw utilities and government services.
It's interesting the discussion of this episode being about people but the housing doesn't including universal design so it's immediately excluding. Sustainability doesn't necessarily mean people focused.
You mean being accessible? Many houses are-or can be-but not all. But that’s how it should be. Vast majority of people don’t need that. It wouldn’t make sense to make every house have ramps and 3’ doors and large bathrooms to accommodate a wheelchair. But they are easy to provide when needed. If you watch the video, we talk specifically about people, not sustainability. We need accessibility…but the RIGHT amount, not everything. And that’s coming from someone who’s had 4 surgeries on a foot over the last 2 years bc of an accidentally, can barely walk (was limping bad after this shoot), and will likely be fairly crippled the rest of my life, and certainly in my 60s. I really don’t think it’s fair to say: some small percent of people need wheelchairs so 100% of our architecture should be accessible.
@@BuildingCulture no I mean universal design, they're different with a crossed over. Traditional building caters fur about 65% of the population but universal design will cater for 98% of the population with accessible catering specifically for known disabilities. Steps typically turn off retirees who forsee potential mobility issues, not specifically wheelchairs. Boomers etc are also the richest demographic and one of the largest building trends is intergenerational living and aging in place. Disabilities can be permanent temporary or situational so design issues affect most people - trips, falls, inaccessibility. Universal design takes into account the human condition from birth to death. Young children have the same issues as the elderly and some physically disabled on tackling the typical build environment so it's a lot broader than just wheelchair users and non. Personally the healthiest communities I've experienced are the ones with all ages, experiences, abilities that share the places together.
@@BuildingCulture no I mean universal design, they're different with a crossed over. Traditional building caters fur about 65% of the population but universal design will cater for 98% of the population with accessible catering specifically for known disabilities. Steps typically turn off retirees who forsee potential mobility issues, not specifically wheelchairs. Boomers etc are also the richest demographic and one of the largest building trends is intergenerational living and aging in place. Disabilities can be permanent temporary or situational so design issues affect most people - trips, falls, inaccessibility. Universal design takes into account the human condition from birth to death. Young children have the same issues as the elderly and some physically disabled on tackling the typical build environment so it's a lot broader than just wheelchair users and non. Personally the healthiest communities I've experienced are the ones with all ages, experiences, abilities that share the places together.
@@HenryMcTavish It's a give and take. If you don't put in a porch, people complain about the lack of privacy and people walking by seeing right into your window. The many townhomes in PA and Chicago still seem to be popular. They haven't demolished all of them to accommodate a small percentage with mobility issues. People who need ramps will find a way. Perhaps the solution is to enter through the garage....Wheeler District is by far one of the best developments the metro has had in recent years.
I didn't bother watching all the way through because of your huge blind spot. CARS are why we lost community and the ability to design around human needs. Look at the width of the sidewalks you're walking on- barely wide enough for 2 people. Now look at the width of the street- parking and 2 lanes of traffic. No public spaces to sit or congregate. Don't blame architects- they rarely are involved in suburban sprawl development. Blame people and their attachment to cars. Blame municipal planners and politicians who don't put housing, employment and commercial uses together in the first place.
Fantastic video - I will gladly help to share it! And I’m looking forward to more long form content like this 👏🏼
Very much appreciate it! You are already producing such great stuff. Keep it up!
Thank you for putting out more videos recently!!! 🎉🎉🎉 I’m loving them! The people want more brick 🧱
Inspiring!
Thank you! Cool to hear.
Great work, Keep it up!
Thank you! Will do :)
Really enjoyed the video 🔥
Glad to hear! Thanks for note.
Nicely done Austin! Hopefully many more people will see these episodes and learn about the movement of New Urbanism. It feels like a no brainer, especially if you’re raising a family, to want to live in a community that is connected and built to sustain life and create real experiences. Great job!
Much appreciated! And agree: a no brained for the reasons you list here. Thanks!
❤❤❤❤❤
“Double Headshot” 9:06 😂
But for real, love what you guys do and how you approach it. The balance.
Arlington, VA. It’s tough seeing brick-on-all-sides or characterful homes torn down. It’s even harder when they are replaced by $2-3m 5,000sqft homes with 7 bedrooms with only half decent façades and builders grade (no offense) siding everywhere else.
Would love to see what you all could do in a place like Leesburg, VA. Blending +200yo historic small town with new TND principles.
Double head shot? Can’t figure out what you mean haha.
Yea that’s rough to watch. We see it here too. Though probably not as nice original houses all y’all have up there.
@@BuildingCulture lol, the kids in the background nailing their friend in the head with a soccer ball. Twice.
Yup, but such is progress. It’s a weird mix around the DC/Northern VA area. But ironically there’s a growing interest in small town community development places like Loudoun County (the supposed wealthiest county in America)
Hi Building Culture, this video really gives me confidents on the future of community, because thanks to you and your videos, we are now many steps closer to figure out a practicable solution! I also checked out your other social media platforms, if you can talk more about craftsmanship, material, and design concepts as a builder. I also think it would be helpful if you collectively make some videos which inspired from some of your replies on x , such as some arguments about loneliness, technology, economy or culture. A video that puts two opposite arguments helps more people understand, especially for those who aren't in direct interest in construction. Thank you!
Great feedback. Thank you!
I LOVE the work you’re doing and the philosophy of this video. I’m an urban planner working as a development PM in Flint. How do I help??
Hey much appreciated!! Keep doing what you’re doing :) Every person talking about stuff like this, especially who work in the field, is a HUGE deal! We need more architects/planners/developers who get this!
Beautiful neighborhood, but I am curious, if there's ever a fire, what will prevent the spread since the houses are so close together? Love the work you guys are doing!
Thank you! Many ways to solve for fire today whether materials, sprinkling, and just shorter fire responses. A house caught fire under construction here last year, burned down, and no issues elsewhere.
This is an exemplary model for planning a suburdan area. You said its about a mile from downtown and Id like to ask if theres a public transit system in place to service these peoples access to the area? On a nice day thats an acceptable walk for any of your needs but in bad weather that would be a pain.
Additionally, I assume this is all new construction/development. What are your thoughts on revitalizing legacy areas? Greenspace and bike lanes are talked about at naseum in the civil eng and architectural world these days but its an extraordinary give and take.
For instance, the addition of better side walks and a bike lane will reduce the throughput of your road. Now, the addition of greenspade will get rid of houses and reduce the roads demand. But people still have to live somewhere so that means the urban areas might require more highrise apartments. Of course, you could continue sprawling the suburban area in the same manor, but that comes at the cost of transportation issues.
Great thoughts. They are working on transit but will likely be bike lanes and bus stops over time. Change is hard! But that’s coming.
Yes, all new construction. Infill is hard! Doing some of that now too. It’s a messy and long term game but necessary.
We generally are against a things over 4-6 stories, at least in mid-west. Not never, just not necessary usually. 2 - 4 stories is ideal for Oklahoma imo for most part
Sing it from the rooftops! So pumped for you to start publishing longer content like this. Great work!
Much appreciated! We are excited.
@@BuildingCulture خ
This is a great video and love the concepts generally speaking. From my experience of living in a development with garages in the back yards in half the neighborhood (it was on the state line and the other half had front-facing garages), it actually decreased the amount of interaction with our neighbors. Because everyone would come and go through the back yard which had privacy fences, you’d never bump into your neighbors and stop to chat. Across the state line there were always people hanging in the front driveways playing with the kids and the sense of community in that part of the neighborhood was palpable.
Ugly as they might be I’d rather have a front-facing garage (attached or not) just for that reason.
Looking forward to the next episode!
That’s a fair point! Have seen this ourselves actually. You are right: it still depends on neighborhood. In this neighborhood everyone is always out walking, at park, pool, coffee shop, etc, so lots of reasons to go out front. But if there aren’t good reasons? Exactly: no one sees each other.
@@BuildingCulture that makes sense! My old neighborhood had no commercial development involved at the time (they started after we left with a coffee shop, pizza spot etc) so maybe that’s changed now. Good food for thought.
Did not just bikes influence you? I do hope so.
This is awesome seeing you talk about the stuff that’s already been implemented in the Netherlands for decades.
We’ve also built our roads for cyclists and so so so much more.
We are so inspired by Dutch cities!! Y’all do amazing work over there. And yes, increasing amounts of bikes here.
@@BuildingCulture good to see, i work for CROW ( a company making the design manuals for streets, roads, materials and environments) and yes the US has so many outdated design guidelines and systems like: electrical safety, fire safety, building codes, building efficiency codes, etc. Hopefully these’ll get addressed in the next few year 🙏
Ugh, that guy is such a detriment to the TND movement in the USA (and Canada). Also, Building Culture has been at this much longer than that UA-cam channel has been around.
I understand where you are coining from, and there’s certainly good ideas to take from European urban centers. But North America will never be that, nor should it strive to be. It can be better though…
@@ChuckThree why shouldn’t it strive to be like that? Prior to WW2 pretty much every American and Canadian city was perfectly walkable. Why not do that again by changing what they build today? You know we will all go down if the US doesn’t change this cause their way of building and living is killing people, their wallets and the planet.
The 8-foot fence on the left seems out of place with human-centric (which I would assume also means community-building) design in the section on privacy. The porch, I get. The fence, not so much.
I was glad to see bike parking near the end. Was wondering where those were.
This is similar to the Prospect neighborhood in Longmont.
So what was here before the neighborhood was built? And is it integrated in with the neighborhood next door? The Google overview is an old pass by that didn't include any kinds of integration with neighbors.
Complex issue, but will be connected at some point. I genuinely believe they’re doing the best they can. Agreed on fence not being very nice. It will come down some day.
On the original model, the buildings seem to look a lot different from what they are now, the old ones had red roofs and looked like older structures, are y’all going to morph into that style as you get closer to the Ferris wheel, or are y’all going to keep the same colorful style? Because I’m fine with either one, but there are some buildings in the old model that I would want to see, there are some buildings that looked like town halls, they had nice crafted designs, I would like to see those buildings happen, maybe you could mix up the style, keep the same almost victorian design of the old one, but color it like the new design.
We are not the developer so I’m not sure what they have planned. We are just building within the neighborhood!
I appreciate and support the increase in craftsmanship and quality, but I would never spend my money on a house like that. There's zero space on the lot for anything but the house. I would take a few acres of land with plenty of trees over a five minute walk to the nearest Brewery any day.
Totally get it. And that should 100% exist. Heck, we might want that some day. But a lot of people just want better neighborhoods and a real community and a different lifestyle. And it so happens to take up quite a bit less space…where the suburbs themselves could become a good bit less crowded and substantially more pleasant if done well. A lot of people in the suburbs talk about traffic right? Way to solve for that is to build fewer suburbs. But our point with this video is: we’re not even able to build what many people want because it is arbitrarily illegal.
@@BuildingCulture Absolutely, there should be more options when it comes to zoning. Obviously, there needs to be some level of zoning control, or else you end up with a mess like Huston, but developers and architects should be free to try new concepts or go back to old ones as the case may be.
I absolutely respect the various desires that people have for how they would want to live, but one thing I think that’s always missing from this discussion are the cost differences. Most styles of less-than-urban living have been so subsidized in so many ways, that when the costs aren’t applied to a home/landowner, owning lots of land sounds like the obvious answer. But when factoring in the per-lot costs of utilities, transportation infrastructure, fire and police coverage, (and those costs actually being disbursed fairly to service-users based on the cost to service their lot) I think a lot of people would make a different decision than they would today. Of course, not everyone, so I definitely think options are needed, but the convo is missing something if we’re not talking about *actual* cost to service and make usable
@@willhenke03 have you actually built in a rural area before? Utility companies are either for profit companies or local Co-ops; and they charge charge crazy amounts, I have seen bills over 30K for installing a new service a few hundred yards from the nearest pole. Local government services aren't much better. We already have county sheriffs , fire is volunteer, ambulances are run by EMSA which is corporate, so no problems there. Regardless, it's not the governments to dictate how people live, if people want a suburban or rural life style, it's on the government to accommodate the will of the people not the other way around. Personally I'm planning on going completely of grid, screw utilities and government services.
It's interesting the discussion of this episode being about people but the housing doesn't including universal design so it's immediately excluding. Sustainability doesn't necessarily mean people focused.
You mean being accessible? Many houses are-or can be-but not all. But that’s how it should be. Vast majority of people don’t need that. It wouldn’t make sense to make every house have ramps and 3’ doors and large bathrooms to accommodate a wheelchair. But they are easy to provide when needed. If you watch the video, we talk specifically about people, not sustainability. We need accessibility…but the RIGHT amount, not everything.
And that’s coming from someone who’s had 4 surgeries on a foot over the last 2 years bc of an accidentally, can barely walk (was limping bad after this shoot), and will likely be fairly crippled the rest of my life, and certainly in my 60s.
I really don’t think it’s fair to say: some small percent of people need wheelchairs so 100% of our architecture should be accessible.
What do you mean by _”universal design”_ ?
@@BuildingCulture no I mean universal design, they're different with a crossed over. Traditional building caters fur about 65% of the population but universal design will cater for 98% of the population with accessible catering specifically for known disabilities. Steps typically turn off retirees who forsee potential mobility issues, not specifically wheelchairs. Boomers etc are also the richest demographic and one of the largest building trends is intergenerational living and aging in place. Disabilities can be permanent temporary or situational so design issues affect most people - trips, falls, inaccessibility. Universal design takes into account the human condition from birth to death. Young children have the same issues as the elderly and some physically disabled on tackling the typical build environment so it's a lot broader than just wheelchair users and non. Personally the healthiest communities I've experienced are the ones with all ages, experiences, abilities that share the places together.
@@BuildingCulture no I mean universal design, they're different with a crossed over. Traditional building caters fur about 65% of the population but universal design will cater for 98% of the population with accessible catering specifically for known disabilities. Steps typically turn off retirees who forsee potential mobility issues, not specifically wheelchairs. Boomers etc are also the richest demographic and one of the largest building trends is intergenerational living and aging in place. Disabilities can be permanent temporary or situational so design issues affect most people - trips, falls, inaccessibility. Universal design takes into account the human condition from birth to death. Young children have the same issues as the elderly and some physically disabled on tackling the typical build environment so it's a lot broader than just wheelchair users and non. Personally the healthiest communities I've experienced are the ones with all ages, experiences, abilities that share the places together.
@@HenryMcTavish It's a give and take. If you don't put in a porch, people complain about the lack of privacy and people walking by seeing right into your window. The many townhomes in PA and Chicago still seem to be popular. They haven't demolished all of them to accommodate a small percentage with mobility issues. People who need ramps will find a way. Perhaps the solution is to enter through the garage....Wheeler District is by far one of the best developments the metro has had in recent years.
I didn't bother watching all the way through because of your huge blind spot. CARS are why we lost community and the ability to design around human needs. Look at the width of the sidewalks you're walking on- barely wide enough for 2 people. Now look at the width of the street- parking and 2 lanes of traffic. No public spaces to sit or congregate. Don't blame architects- they rarely are involved in suburban sprawl development. Blame people and their attachment to cars. Blame municipal planners and politicians who don't put housing, employment and commercial uses together in the first place.
Incremental change. Americans still need cars to get around. This neighborhood is a step in the right direction