ABSTRACT
Larger groups of people, buildings and landscapes offer different social possibilities. A large ensemble of dwellings forms a mini-city within a suburb that can evolve a tangible sense of identity through shared values and behaviours. A series of examples from the early twentieth century are visited and analysed—each combining a strong and recognisable architectural identity with equally strong landscaping, vegetation and external spaces, which tread a delicate line between privacy for individuals and maintaining a ‘neighbourly’ sense of belonging. They are separated from the surrounding suburb—either by topography, elevation or fencing—but also rub directly up against it, with facades, views and frontages clearly engaging with the street. Even for the most introverted of tenants, there is a sense that each resident ‘belongs’ to these buildings and a collective life.
In order to test and develop these ideas, we have designed larger apartment ensembles, where opportunities for neighbourly interaction, personalised expression and informal identity building are built into the infrastructure and considered as an essential part of the brief. In order to do this, a certain ‘letting go’ of formal control in favour of a more robust infrastructural approach is required.
