
How “One-Plus-Five” Is Shaping American Cities - skybrian
http://archplanbaltimore.blogspot.com/2015/03/how-one-plus-five-is-shaping-american_27.html
======
timerol
This article seems to be putting on some strong rose-colored glasses. It
appeals to the idea that people in the past all lived in beautiful, long-
lasting buildings. The reality is that the long-lasting buildings are the only
ones that still exist. The bulk of humanity has always lived in cheap
construction. Affordable housing is not a bad thing, especially with modern
fire codes.

The last paragraph starts with "For centuries the quality of their buildings
and a certain permanence set cities apart". That's a really good joke. The
author even points to this earlier with "The sameness [of 1+5s] isn't like
East Berlin's "Plattenbauten" (precast concrete buildings) around
Alexanderplatz, nor has it the uniformity of some of Baltimore's rowhouse
neighborhoods." I'm legitimately not sure whether those cheaply constructed
neighborhoods are supposed to be positive examples or not.

~~~
NickM
_This article seems to be putting on some strong rose-colored glasses. It
appeals to the idea that people in the past all lived in beautiful, long-
lasting buildings. The reality is that the long-lasting buildings are the only
ones that still exist._

Well sure, but at least _some_ houses used to be beautiful and long-lasting;
nowadays, even large, expensive mansions are typically built in a cheap,
slapdash manner, using techniques and materials that are not nearly as long-
lasting or durable as the ones that would've been used to build a nice house a
century ago.

For a really obvious example, just look at roofing materials; a good slate
roof can last over a century with minimal maintenance, but nobody builds
houses with slate roofs anymore. Instead, even high-end homes use asphalt
shingles that last 20-30 years tops.

~~~
kazen44
is this actually true though? Most older long-lasting buildings seem to either
be build for industrial/economic use or are goverment/public project kind of
works.

Also, most normal housing was of dubious quality all throughout history, there
is a reason many european cities decided to level vast parts of their working
class housing districts after ww2. Mainly because it was far easier to start
over (thanks to ww2 damage) and because most of these housing where simply to
cheap to be worth restoring.

~~~
NickM
Yes, absolutely. I live in a city with a ton of old freestanding houses that
were built around 1900, and they're incredibly sturdy. You can see this all
throughout the construction:

The frames are built from really thick wooden beams that can take a beating. I
had a large tree fall on my house earlier this year, and the trunk
bounced/slid off, doing only superficial damage to the roof and siding; I
talked to multiple contractors and insurance people who said a newer house
built using modern construction standards would've been flattened, or at least
suffered serious structural damage.

Things like windows are built to last too. The original wooden sash cord
designs are still functioning 100+ years after they were built, with the
exception of a couple windows that needed the cords replaced, but that's
relatively cheap and easy. I expect the same windows will continue to work
another 100 years as long as they're cared for and maintained.

This isn't about "the democratization of luxury", as another commenter
suggested. Cheap construction costs more in the long term. This is about a
cultural shift toward favoring short-term over long-term thinking. Long-
lasting wood sash cord windows would not be expensive to build in this day and
age, and they could be quite energy efficient too with modern glass and
weather stripping, but people don't think or care about the long term the way
they used to, and so they'd would rather settle for cheap, shiny vinyl windows
that yellow and crack and fall apart in a matter of decades.

~~~
Jarb
Slight rant, but those types of windows were one of the first things that
bugged me when I moved over from Europe. IMO, not only are they not as
practical, but they also leak more energy than what we had in Germany. You
can't poke your head out all the way and need to bend over awkwardly to get
some fresh air. It would be one thing if it was only on older houses, but new
ones use them as well. By contrast, even my grandparent's house, built in the
50s, had windows that swung open like a door or leaned inwards at ~10°, if you
only wanted a little bit of a breeze. They even had windows built into the
roof that could be opened either in the middle or from the top, thanks to dual
hinges. Best part, the "Rolladen", aka roll-up blinds built into the walls
that helped with heat-retention in the winter, provided sound-dampening, and
could be automated by a timer. Maybe it's just the area where I live, but I
get the feeling that for many architectural features in the states we decided
about 100 years that everything is good enough as it is and the only continued
innovation was geared towards cutting corners and getting cheaper materials to
work. /rant 0 [https://goo.gl/images/QS5oJj](https://goo.gl/images/QS5oJj)
[https://goo.gl/images/1nRYHt](https://goo.gl/images/1nRYHt)
[https://goo.gl/images/kDVPkv](https://goo.gl/images/kDVPkv)
[https://goo.gl/images/TfDtoK](https://goo.gl/images/TfDtoK)

------
oftenwrong
Another growing architectural trend in American cities is what is often called
a "Texas Doughnut" or "Dallas Doughnut": a multi-level parking garage wrapped
in apartments. Ground-floor commercial space may be included as well.

[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RDQh277PWAY/UXx7Ya3u-ZI/AAAAAAAAA-...](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RDQh277PWAY/UXx7Ya3u-ZI/AAAAAAAAA-E/MdMXoVqC6-M/s1600/Dallas_donut.jpg)

~~~
calcifer
Wow, looks horrible. Much better to make that a communal garden and have the
garage underground.

~~~
eqdw
Underground parking structures cost something on the order of 5x as much as
aboveground parking structures.

And aboveground parking structures are already ungodly expensive. One example
given from The High Cost Of Free Parking (which is an amazing book that
everyone should read, or at least read a summary of) looked at a study of
parking facilities and found that the amortized per-parking spot cost of
building an above-ground parking facility, including construction,
maintenance, and staffing, was $120,000 per spot. 5x that and you're looking
at half a mil per spot for undergrounding it.

Would you, personally, pay an additional $400,000 to put that parking
underground? Do you think you could convince every single person in that
housing complex to do that? I highly doubt it. If that apartment complex was
condos, eg, it's likely in that case that each condo unit would be cheaper
than the parking spot for it (keeping in mind that, given it's Texas, most
units would probably have 2 or maybe even 3 parking spots).

Even if you could actually get everyone on board to spend so much, you'd be so
dramatically increasing the unit cost of housing in that facility that you'd
start getting all the typical gentrification problems. Your typical middle
class family can't afford an extra 1/2 million dollars on their mortgage, so
if you add that extra 1/2 mil the only way you're getting paying customers is
to target the luxury top of the market.

\----

Pre-emptive rebuttal: one might say "well, if each parking spot already costs
$120k, that argument applies just as well to the existing parking facility". I
agree! Mandatory parking minima are an ungodly expensive tax on our society.
If parking costs could be fully internalized and then each individual resident
was presented with the option to forego the parking spot in exchange for
taking that much off of their mortgage, I suspect that a _lot_ of them would
forego the parking spot. But, by law, they are not allowed that option.

This is doubly perverse when you realize that the cost of providing 2 marginal
parking spots at an apartment complex is significantly _more_ expensive than
the cost of providing 2 marginal parking spots at (eg) a suburban single
family home, and yet the people who live in an apartment complex are
significantly more likely to have good access to mass transit and so they're
being made to pay much much more for something that they need somewhat less
than the average perosn

~~~
amyjess
> Would you, personally, pay an additional $400,000 to put that parking
> underground? Do you think you could convince every single person in that
> housing complex to do that? I highly doubt it. If that apartment complex was
> condos, eg, it's likely in that case that each condo unit would be cheaper
> than the parking spot for it (keeping in mind that, given it's Texas, most
> units would probably have 2 or maybe even 3 parking spots).

Also, the picture here is from a mixed-use development, not just a housing
complex (it's from the West Village in Uptown Dallas; I posted a Street View
link in another comment if you're interested). There's retail on the ground
floor.

Nobody in Dallas is going to go shopping or out to eat if we can't drive there
and find a place to park. I can't even count the amount of times my friends or
family have said "eh, let's go somewhere else" or "we'll come back another
day" just because we couldn't find a place to park. No parking spots means
businesses go under. So not only do you need 2-3 parking spots per unit, you
need parking for all the customers of the retail establishments on the ground
floor.

------
deegles
Has someone done the math comparing these structures to all-concrete
structures in terms of CO2/energy usage? I'm sure concrete lasts longer, but
if a mostly wood structure lasts half as long but creates less than 50% of the
emissions then it should come out ahead?

~~~
max76
This is really hard to accurately predict.

The average wood structure with concrete foundation lasts 120 years. We have a
good understanding of how much CO2 is costs to build an all-concrete structure
today, and we have a good understanding of how much CO2 it costs to build a
conventional building today. How much CO2 will it cost to build the
replacement building in ~100 years from now? What will the energy requirements
of a conventional building built 100 years from now be compared to the energy
requirements of our options today? Think about how much different a structure
built in 1918 is compared to one build today.

------
jdblair
All of the spectacular construction fires in Oakland in the past few years
have been this type of construction. The enormous open wood frame structures
were like carefully constructed bonfires built of dry wood. Lots of surface
area and ventilation to feed the fire once it got started.

~~~
drewmate
I haven't lived in Oakland too long, so I don't have memory of these fires,
but they certainly haven't stopped the momentum of 1+5's in my neighborhood.
Just in the last ~2 years I've seen 3-4 (block-sized) buildings like these go
up in my immediate vicinity.

Honestly, I'd never considered them to be negative; they're quick to build and
encourage street-level retail and walkable neighborhoods. That seems like
exactly what the Bay Area cities (and many other US cities) need right now. To
me, they seem like a strict improvement over large residential-only blocks
popular in the last 25 years.

~~~
jdblair
I don't think they're a negative, either. Build, build, build!

------
klodolph
As a related not, at least in NYC the six-story building is very common, and
this is apparently because a seven-story building will typically require a
water tower to regulate water pressure.

~~~
saalweachter
It’s also the cutoff for what most people will tolerate in a walk up, and the
sixth floor is already pretty discounted, so if you add more floors you’re
probably looking at an elevator to boot.

~~~
dajohnson89
Wow, I couldnt imagine more than 3 stories without an elevator. Just think of
groceries, wet shoes, heading outside then realizing you forgot your
sunglasses, etc.

------
OedipusRex
I've lived in two of these types of buildings, I live in one currently. The
first one I lived in was at a big state college and was put up in very short
time. The craftsmanship, or lack thereof that went into this building was very
noticeable. My roommates outlet was at a 20 degree angle, the doors hollow,
and the paint was very cheap.

The one I currently live in is a bit better, it's in a Midwestern state
capitol and has nicer amenities but the doors are still hollow, and the paint
is still cheap.

~~~
purple_ducks
How is the inter apartment noise containment?

~~~
OedipusRex
I don't hear anyone around me but I only share one wall with another apartment
and I'm on the top floor so no one above me. That said, noise leaks to and
from the hallways.

------
CalRobert
I've spent at least 40 seconds looking at this page and still have no idea
what "one-plus-five" is referring to.

~~~
jdblair
From the article:

Until a few years ago, it was fairly uncommon for an architect to go beyond
four stories with wood-frame construction. Today, many designers choose five
stories of wood over concrete podiums as a way to cost-effectively increase
the density of projects. (Architectural Record March 2014)

~~~
com2kid
A building design pioneered in Seattle!

They are all over the place, to mixed success.

When they work well, neighborhoods are revitalized with local businesses and
people become active in their local community, kids play outside, and friends
have places to mingle locally.

When they fail, it is a barrage of "for lease" signs on bottom floor windows
as the retail spaces sit empty.

~~~
max76
I think the one plus five buildings create a higher density of retail space
than the residential population can support. Even in lively sections of
popular Seattle neighborhoods with 90%+ residential occupancy you will see
empty retail space in one-plus-fives.

Even Seattle can only support a finite number of coffee shops and the
boutiques have to compete with supermarkets, department stores, and online
retailers.

~~~
com2kid
You'd think so, but when I visit other countries I see amounts of retail that
dwarf anything in the states.

The Suzhou metro region in China has ~3x the population of the Seattle metro,
but way, way, more than 3x the retail.

Kyoto is the same way, comparable to the Seattle Metro, way more retail.

It may also be that America tends towards larger retail outlets, we have a
lack of high quality smaller restaurants, and the % of boutiques to larger
stores (Macy's, etc) here seems different than in other countries.

For that matter, it was interesting to me that many of the large department
stores in Japan are made up of what we'd think of as smaller boutique
retailers who just so happen to be located right next to each other. It is a
very different way to shop, in an American department store, the store runs
everything and may have different brands broken out into sections. In a fair
number of Japanese department stores, each brand seemed to be an independent
retailer!

(This was super cool for variety and price points.)

I noticed something similar in China as well, not quite in the same way, and
large name brand owned stores seemed much more popular there, but there were
plenty of malls that consisted of tiny local stores all lined up next to each
other.

I've also noticed that the minimum sqft for the newer mixed use buildings
seems to be rather large. Compare the newer buildings to what you find in
lower Queen Ann, where there are more tiny stores sitting around, same thing
around Fremont.

On a related note, I'd love to see more restaurants that fit only 5 or 6
people in them, with just a chef running the whole show. Is it less efficient?
Maybe, but the food is better.

If you want something in that vein, Max's World Cafe in DT Issaquah is tiny,
and the chef, Edna, is incredible and friendly. I could do with 10x
restaurants of that size! Modern construction just isn't setup to pop out a
bunch of 150 sqft restaurants in a block though.

~~~
max76
My experience traveling to Suzhou and Kyoto confirm what you are saying.

I wonder what all the factors are that contribute to the increase in small
businesses. I would like to see an increase in these types of retail
businesses and restaurants. Kyoto, and to a lesser proportional degree Suzhou,
have much more tourism than Seattle has. Both cities experience more foot
traffic. Both cities are much older. I wonder if there are any differences on
the retail market, business capital market, or legal regulations that
encourage empty retail spots to be quickly filled in Kyoto and Suzhou. I
wonder if Asian retailers feel strong competition from online orders. The
Seattle housing market, either with market forces or legal regulation, have
more complete kitchens than the Kyoto/Suzhou housing market. I wonder what
effect this has on the restaurant market.

> On a related note, I'd love to see more restaurants that fit only 5 or 6
> people in them, with just a chef running the whole show. Is it less
> efficient? Maybe, but the food is better.

Food trucks are a very close approximate to this type of restaurant.

~~~
com2kid
> Food trucks are a very close approximate to this type of restaurant.

The quality is a world of difference though.

Those tiny restaurants in other countries have real chefs with full, if small,
kitchens, cooking sit down meals.

Best bowl of ramen I had in Japan was a single chef establishment, he was in a
U-shaped open kitchen and guests sat around him.

> I wonder if there are any differences on the retail market, business capital
> market, or legal regulations that encourage empty retail spots to be quickly
> filled in Kyoto and Suzhou.

I think the very existence of small retail spots helps!

> and to a lesser proportional degree Suzhou, have much more tourism than
> Seattle has.

In 2017 Seattle had 39.9 million tourists
([https://www.visitseattle.org/press/press-releases/seattle-
se...](https://www.visitseattle.org/press/press-releases/seattle-sees-eighth-
consecutive-year-of-record-tourism/)), in 2013 Suzhou had 1.7 million
([http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/m/jiangsu/suzhou/travel/2013-09...](http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/m/jiangsu/suzhou/travel/2013-09/23/content_16987667.htm))

FWIW, if anyone reading this is wondering where to go next, I'd recommend
Suzhou! (or visit Seattle in late spring, Suzhou in early autumn!)

Every year at PAX West I am saddened by the lack of good food around DT
Seattle for people to eat. Granted downtown is largely a business district,
but I bet Subway gets the majority of PAX West food sales!

------
russellbeattie
I've seen a few of these being built in Mountain View... now I understand that
it's a trend.

I haven't been inside one, but it _has_ to be better than the Karate Kid-style
apartment building with all the entrances facing inwards towards a central
courtyard/pool/garden which is common around California. Those are like living
in a Motel, where every noise from your neighbors echoes around the central
area.

The other style is the 'mega-apartment' complexes which have their own issues
as well. I have been inside those, and they're universally depressing. I
wonder what it is that Americans can't figure out how to create housing which
encourages community instead of killing it. Maybe the One-Plus-Five is the
answer?

~~~
sand500
I don't see a problem with the 1+5 style. I think the street level retail is
important for making the area seem lively especially if they are built near
the caltrain station "downtowns" like Palo Alto, Mountain View or Sunnyvale. I
certainly prefer this style to gated or enclosed apartment communities style.

The best style I saw was in Northern Virginia where around every DC metro
station was a cluster of high rise apartments, high rise offices and malls
with regular suburb once you walk a couple of blocks away.

------
vinceguidry
America is a big place with tens of thousands of cities. There just aren't
enough architects to make everything unique. Expecting her to be as
architecturally diverse as Europe is asking too much.

I'm just glad we're moving away from strip malls.

~~~
jtbayly
Ultimately what the author is asking for isn't architectural diversity but
longer lasting buildings:

"It is hard to imagine that fifty years onward folks would get excited about
the one-plus-five buildings or contemplate an adaptive re-use. Too flimsy to
last even that long, these buildings will probably have to be demolished once
they become obsolete, unable to stand as the testimony of our times."

He talks about strong or weak "bones" and contends that this sort of stick-
built construction doesn't have good strong "bones."

~~~
pixl97
Eh, with _any_ maintenance those buildings will last at least 50 years.

In the US the bigger issue is, in 50 years will it make any sense for the
building owner to pay to maintain the building? Putting up a long lasting
building in certain places in Detroit 50 years ago may have made sense... but
now it could be in a completely worthless ghetto, everybody has moved from the
area.

Or, as the saying goes "In the US, 100 years is a long time"

~~~
com2kid
It is good for the city! Those long lasting buildings are where affordable
housing is found, it is where artists studios thrive, where community spaces
are built.

Cities need buildings that are durable, long lasting, and that have
depreciated in value!

