Creating the New American Town House

Book excerpt: Once the bastion of the haute bourgeoisie, the town house has now been embraced by families with young children, single urban professionals, and retired couples, all looking for more comfortable city or suburban living. Architect Alexander Gorlin explores a spectacular array of diverse town house designs (often referred to by different terms in different parts of the country) that carry this familiar symbol of architectural innovation and refinement into the twenty-first century. Creating the New American Town House features cutting-edge town houses that each draw from architectural tradition while achieving originality by both breaking from and adhering to the limitations of the town house form. Within the typical five-story frame and two parallel walls presented here are ingenious and exquisite and, above all, extremely livable design solutions to the constraints of this classic housing type. Ranging from sites in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC, each of the buildings featured in Creating the New American Town House represents an eloquent contribution to the form and is designed by such celebrated architects as Steven Ehrlich, Hugh Newell Jacobson, Reed Krakoff, Stanley Saitowitz, and 1100 Architect. Each project is extensively illustrated with full-color photography that showcases the interior design as well as plans and drawings. Alexander Gorlin's insightful text continues the discourse begun in his The New American Town House, surveying the adaptation of this beloved urban dwelling to the demands of a new century.