Cookie Cutter Homes?

In many new housing developments, the builder offers a set number of housing styles to choose from. The prospective home owner doesn't generally get to pick individual features, combining them together to craft a complete house. Rather, there are a set of blueprints to choose from, some of which are mirror images of others. The resulting look on the street, depending on the number of housing styles to choose from, can look a lot like the houses were pressed out of a small selection of molds, creating a repeating pattern as a person travels down the street. In other words, it creates a cookie cutter community.

One of the attributes of Old Town that came up repeatedly in the community discussions was that people love the variety and diversity of housing styles in Old Town. Though there are a predominant number of cottages, there are also Victorians, Queen Annes, and various permutations of modernist houses. One of the complaints among the community was that the new housing didn't always fit stylistically with the houses that are already here. Lack of a front porch on some houses was brought up, as well as long stretches of flat, protruding house.

To counter these complaints from community members, the consultants drew up 3 design options for new 2-story buildings to follow. (Single story houses are entirely excluded from this part of the ordinance.)

A limited two story façade helps to keep the house from looking like a box with a roof on top. It's possible that the yellow house on the right in the first photo might be an example of not fitting this rule. (Measuring the width of the house and the depth of the part that juts out would be the only way to know for sure if this house would be allowed under the new ordinance or not.) The over all flatness of the front of the building isn't in keeping with the older architecture in this part of town. 

Another way to avoid the "box with a roof" look is to have one portion of the house stick out a bit further than the rest. Many old Old Town houses have this sort of feature (although most are 1-story, not 2-story; but the bit of jutting out house in front, with a porch to the side, is a common theme). 

This 1995 remodel of a 1901 house on Oak Street follows the "one story element" idea by having a section of the house jut out a little further than the rest of the house. (It's likely that the first level of the house façade is original.) 

One of the first things a person notices when driving through Old Town, after marveling over the beautiful, mature trees, is the front porches. Housing after World War II rarely included front porches. An overwhelming number of Old Town residents in both surveys and community discussions said that porches are one of the key design elements that come to mind when thinking about the character of these neighborhoods. This is why the third suggested design element in the new ordinance is for a porch. 

Some new houses in Old Town include a porch, but it doesn't significantly improve the flat façade because of the way it added. The new ordinance requires at least a 6 foot deep porch, in keeping with the style common to the older houses. This helps the porch look like a feature of the house, rather than just a means of keeping the rain off while grabbing your keys. 

Unlike many modern housing developments, these design features that builders/owners can choose from are very lenient. Rather than selecting a set pattern or blueprint, these design options give minimums and maximums and leave a whole lot up to the creativity of the architect and the desires of the home builder. In affect, the design guidelines synthesize what it is about Old Town houses that makes them look different than many cookie cutter communities in cities across America and it directs architects to keep new houses and additions in keeping with these themes. A very wide amount of leeway exists enabling creative home designers to create a house that will fit in well with the community without looking quite like any other house in town. In other words, the design guidelines included in the new ordinance will help to keep Old Town from becoming yet another cookie cutter community. 

 --- Why Porches? ---

Though only one of the design options for 2-story houses is specific to porches, it's worthwhile to take a look at why porches are important in Fort Collins. In addition to building solid, rugged houses that have shown they can stand the test of time, builders in the late 1800's and early 1900's also took into account issues of sustainability -- not because it was the cool thing to do, but because sustainable building designs led to cheaper heating and cooling bills of for the residents living in those houses. Porches were an important part of that design. 

In Robert Bailey's article entitled, The Sustainable Bungalow, he explains, "The Rocky Mountain Institute's 1995 Primer on Sustainable Building provided general guidelines on using building shape and orientation to, for example, capture sunlight for passive solar heating and lighting in cold and temperate climates. Eaves and windows can be placed so that winter sunlight reaches into the dwelling but summer sunlight will not. Deep covered porches provide additional shading from their overhangs and shelter outdoor gatherings during hot spells." With solar access issues cropping up due to new, over-sized construction and porches becoming a less frequent feature of Old Town houses, these neighborhoods are slowly losing the sustainable passive heating and cooling systems that have been so common to the neighborhood. 

Source:

The 3 design menu drawings are directly from Ordinance 033.