Small Spaces, Full Lives, Antifragile Design.
If you watch movies set in, say, 1950s New York or San Francisco, people frequently live in a small rental with gorgeous dark wood floors, a big picture window overlooking a lively street scene, a folding screen in the corner to provide some privacy when they change clothes and a bathroom but no kitchen.
A la the wife's apartment in the movie A Walk in the Clouds, shown when Keanu Reeves' character goes to see her in San Francisco and she asks for an annulment.
This is not depicted as run down poverty housing in a bad neighborhood. It's comfortable, low maintenance housing for ordinary people, such as childless couples or comfortably well-off seniors.
A la the wife's apartment in the movie A Walk in the Clouds, shown when Keanu Reeves' character goes to see her in San Francisco and she asks for an annulment.
This is not depicted as run down poverty housing in a bad neighborhood. It's comfortable, low maintenance housing for ordinary people, such as childless couples or comfortably well-off seniors.
Influences
- Mid Century Modern architecture and furnishings.
- Art Deco, a fancier style from a similarly monied era before the car ate our world.
- "A New York state of mind" -- think living within walking distance of a lot of shops and eateries and not needing a car to live large.
- Dutch Golden Age -- a period in Dutch history akin to post-World War II America with a relatively large "middle class" living better than middle class usually means without succumbing to the sickess known as North American Affluenza.
Principles
- Passive Solar design, which is both more sustainable and simultaneously more comfortable for people than crappy "cardboard" apartments with forced-air HVAC trying to manipulate air temperature that is never quite right.
- Daylighting, which allows for much of the light to be provided by sunlight during the day.
- Flexibility and antifragile design to empower residents to have control over their lives and remain comfortable no matter the weather and the occasional standard hiccup of modern life, like a brief power outage.
- Car-friendly without being car-centric.