I have some problems with adding and removing rooms of a house. First, this always results in some waste of construction materials. Even if this is all recycled, it costs more energy & matter than the family just moving to a right-sized house nearby. Second, much of the USA – including Illinois – is in FEMA’s “High Risk Zone for Extreme Wind.” FEMA 320 urges a “safe room” in every home; I’d say the entire building envelope should have at least a “Continuous Load Path.” Adding & removing bedrooms is a bit more involved than operating zippers or Legos. How would Gang’s ideas do this? I cut my teeth on land-in-trust as the radio story mentioned. If you built a variety of home sizes, whose distribution matched the household-composition pyramid for the locale, in a single development, people needing more or fewer bedrooms could move nearby instead of far away. I’ve been designing preliminary floor plans for homes for over 10 years; all have some dedicated workshop space or rooms. I kicked the garage to a separate building, because I want my workshops convenient. In the 1977 book “A Pattern Language,” Christopher Alexander et al. proposed the “Bed Alcove” (pattern 188), which is more compatible with changing numbers of children, and even repurposing the whole children’s area complex.

These already exist. They are called mobile homes. Tie two of them together and double your living space.

[...] Community Center. Now she’s pushing to rework the suburbs, starting with Cicero.      Continue reading here. The Aqua residential center created by Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang Architects – Photo from [...]