In low rise compounds

In low rise compounds

The desire for a house, a garden, and at least one car is a global phenomenon. London compound examples are the only ones that resist becoming gated communities, providing uninterrupted continuity as urban sprawl. Yet in Santiago and Shanghai/Suzhou compound boundaries are locked and compounds become enclaves.

The logic of the type challenges urban efficiency and coherence: The funnelling of all compound inhabitants through a gate results in a nonuniform distribution towards the city grid creating high peaks of traffic; the ratio of street surface for these compounds is extremely high (especially for smaller plots); the services and infrastructure ratio increases transportation demands. With alternative transportation systems being developed in all three cities, could this type be rethought? Making the car a secondary (or non-existent) variable for low rise compounds may update the way in which houses and their clusters are reproduced.