ABSTRACT
“Proliferating a Product Type” addresses how good planning policy can support positive and wide-ranging development outcomes. State and local housing regulations evolved quickly in the early part of the 20th century to discourage lot packing, tenement housing and other housing practices believed to be unsanitary. However, far from dampening production, these rules both prompted more responsible development and supported a range of interpretations, seen in Irving Gill’s Horatio West Court (1919) and a more typical bungalow court three blocks east (1921). Most bungalow courts, like the by-right case example, gather small, detached units around a common central landscaped courtyard opening to the street with either a pedestrian path or, later, a driveway, down the center. Horatio West Court elaborates upon this type by creating larger, more luxurious two-story units built in a modern style out of concrete rather than wood. State and local regulation shaped the open space, unit size and ventilation requirements for house courts, ensuring that they were habitable, but did not create so many requirements that the buildings’ design could not respond to a range of market, social and class conditions. This case shows how good planning and policy can support a range of good design and development outcomes. When housing regulation encodes flexibility and encourages typological innovation.
