Sputterpub's Blog

When I was in my early 50s, I thought often about how to house people, attractively, cozily, affordably, naturally. As described in the other posts in the “universal design” category, I found it gratifying to contemplate how to build with intelligence and forethought. It’s been my experience that if necessity is the mother of invention then laziness must be the father, because my fresh ideas are almost always inspired by a fear of future retrofits. I disdain redoing.

I imagined a few broad building ideas, and I enjoyed envisioning them. But I’m 61 now, and I’m lazy, and I don’t think I’ll be building them or even refining their design. I’m writing them to get them out of my head. Feel free to do with them as you please.

I described my first concept, the spiral-ramp building, in ArcAngle 1 (March 2), and the second, the ramp-around rectangle, a week later. Those ideas led to the realization that walls and floors were getting in my way, and any wood frame was limiting permitted height. I began to toy with metal frames, imagining fabrication from recycled cars.

What fun! The first form was a multi-storied building with permanent metal scaffolding on the outside. The scaffolding acts as ramp and also as benches and maybe play areas around the building. The walls are no longer load-bearing, and can be moved at little expense.

The next idea moved the framing inside. I imagined that the infrastructure would be designed by the future residents, with engineering approval of course. If some people wanted a spoke of frame to intrude into one of their rooms, perhaps with hooks or another detail, that might be possible. The idea is the future residents would design a tree of recycled metal, and then apartments would hang from the branches. Walls, ceilings and floors become acoustical and visual and thermal barriers but not load-bearing treasures.

This building seemed to me to be the ultimate habitat for humans. I haven’t gone beyond it yet.

  When I was 47, I helped established a nonprofit (Hearth, Feb 16) and dove into universal design. And once we got into University Neighborhood Apartments (UNA, Feb 17), I spent much time contemplating that structure.

UNA was always a tight-space puzzle. We were replacing an old paint store on University Avenue with 27 affordable apartments. We backed up to a concerned lovely neighborhood so the roof lines had to be low at that boundary and staggered, and we butted up against retail establishments (and one tucked-back little house) on the sides. We went as close to the property lines as permitted, but of course set-backs were required. There was simply no room to ramp the building; we had to make due with stairs and an elevator.

Which got me to thinking: what if we ramped that rectangular building on the outside? What if we used the set-back area that is above the street level to hold a sweetly sloping pathway around the residential floors of the building?

I think the idea is compelling. The biggest challenge would be window placement.

It then occurred to me that there could be contention on the ramp. Possible disagreements about speed and right of way between, say, kids with skateboards and retirees with walkers. That’s okay, I responded to myself; that’s what community is about, settling the matters that arise between participants.

In fact, I then recalled the days in the early 90s when Danny was so into video games. One of the several I enjoyed seeing was SimCity, a quasi-educational program of urban planning that was eyecatching because of the insect-like busyness of its streets. I now want to build a protective but transparent wall around the ramp. It will keep residents from falling, if any tussle should get out of hand. More: it will give outsiders a show, a kinetic sculpture of the life in the place.