Recently, my family and I sadly
decided to leave our Victorian
house in Cambridge, because it
needed major renovations and we
needed to reduce our mortgage.
Before settling in Arlington, a
neighboring town, we made a stab
at acquiring a vacant lot in Cambridge.
I won't describe the fantastic
development strategies we had
to work out to make an offer
(which was then rejected by the
sellers). But I would like to present
the design I developed for this fairly
typical urban lot.
The Program
At 48 feet wide by roughly 100
feet deep, the lot was fairly narrow,
and long. So a typical urban house
developed: narrow and long, with
the narrow end toward the street.
The townhouse development rules
let