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c.p.'s BAT and Lot Workshop

Started by c.p., November 23, 2012, 04:25:46 PM

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kelis

They looks pretty nice for me !! It would be nice to see your attempt to make this kind of houses  :thumbsup:
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Simcoug

I love Chicago... It's my favorite 'big' city.

Speaking of old pics... Here's a bird's eye drawing from the late 19th century Chicago (maybe you can spot some of those houses in that last post  :D ):
Click for full

vortext

Quote from: c.p. on September 05, 2014, 09:20:52 PM
I guess this is probably an annoying/boring game

Hehe, if it were European timberframe houses I might have taken a wager but to me old US buildings constitute one big architectural style in their own.

Anwyay, looking at the photos I wonder what's up with all the alleys in between. Is there a reason why the houses aren't build w2w?  ???
time flies like a bird
fruit flies like a banana

Swordmaster

Great subject Brian! You probably know I'm with Simcoug on this stuff. Looking forward to more housing like that.


Cheers
Willy

c.p.

Thanks kelis, SimCoug, vortext, and Willy
Quote from: vortext on September 06, 2014, 05:51:56 AM

to me old US buildings constitute one big architectural style in their own.
I was thinking to myself when I made the last couple of posts, "the Europeans are going to think this is nuts."  (Which maybe it is. ::) )  It's probably only because I've been making these kinds of buildings for so long that I see mid-19th century U.S. cities as having a very distinct character from one another.
Quote from: vortext on September 06, 2014, 05:51:56 AM

Anwyay, looking at the photos I wonder what's up with all the alleys in between. Is there a reason why the houses aren't build w2w?  ???


I don't know. %confuso  Outside of Pennsylvania and Maryland and maybe NYC, I don't think there have ever been lots of W2W residential buildings in the U.S.  Maybe it's due to local laws, or tradition, or maybe it's simply that detached buildings are what people prefer to live in, or builders prefer to build.

SimCoug: Those old city drawings are great.  My favorite is this one of Milwaukee made in 1858:



It's an idyllic Greek Revival paradise ;D

APSMS

#245
Certainly Western 19th century is not Eastern 19th century style. Especially comparing even California to Oregon, and certainly California to Boston.

And, to be honest, I was thinking Chicago (since it was obviously not New England), but I should have said it sooner. I guess it's the lurker in me :D.

Those are some lovely models, btw. And those "aerial" drawings of 19th century cities are always intriguing. Apparently they're not very expensive today, but I always think they're neat to see, esp. since they give indicators of busy parts of town much better than old maps might.
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

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romualdillo

Thank you for your advices!!!!! ;D  I don't think this is nuts, I think this is a great project. Perhaps me as European can not differentiate the architectural variations from State to State, but a little between North and South an East and West... Are you going to reproduce Chicago before the Great Fire, or after Burnham?

FrankU

I think this is going to be a wonderful set.
And even if we Europeans consider you nuts, should you really bother? Aren't we all more or less a kind of nuts? Playing this game, while the sun is shining outside?

:-\

So please, go ahead!

And the matter of W2W: I think in most cases the existence of W2W is a matter of space and, hence, price of real estate. When acres tend to get expensive, people tend to buy less and in the end there is no space enough for free standing houses. Then they invent the doube house, the row house, the apartment building and the skyscraper....
And the US is as group of very large states with enough space, also for the not so rich. So I guess there aren't many areas with row houses.
This in contrast to, let's say, the Netherlands.

vortext

#248
Quote from: FrankU on September 08, 2014, 02:06:42 AM
And the matter of W2W: I think in most cases the existence of W2W is a matter of space and, hence, price of real estate. When acres tend to get expensive, people tend to buy less and in the end there is no space enough for free standing houses. [...] So I guess there aren't many areas with row houses.

But here's what puzzling to me, take for example this picture:



These are practically row houses and I would think that actual w2w would be beneficial here, like less maintenance and better isolation. Plus there'd be less dark places for illicit stuff to take place (garbage dumping, graffiti, muggers, burglars, etc), which would probably have an impact on both objective and subjective measures. Then again, I'm probably reading too much into this. It's just that every time I look at that pic I want to push the buildings together.  :D

At any rate. Struggle for space certainly isn't a big an issue in the US. I read an interesting article some time ago about the availability of space and the (un)intended consequences it has on urban development (sprawl!) but alas, no luck finding it again.  &mmm
time flies like a bird
fruit flies like a banana

joshua43214

Quote from: vortext on September 08, 2014, 03:27:09 AM
...These are practically row houses and I would think that actual w2w would be beneficial here, like less maintenance and better isolation.

It's all about ownership and economics. Those places are probably all owned by different people.
Even if they were owned by one person, the cost of tearing down and rebuilding would be prohibitive in the US. If they are low income, they are just allowed to dilapidate until they are condemned, at which point the owner prays for a fire and writes the property off on their taxes. If middle income or above, they are worth far more rent as separate buildings because of increased privacy.
There is a neighborhood near me that 5 or 6 major speculators bought up about 20 years ago, tore down all the slum housing, and put up row houses (sold as condos to dinks). The project stalled several times, even the EPA jumped in demanding an environmental impact assessment (the neighborhood borders downtown and has been urban for over a century).
I can't think of many urban areas in the US with row houses built in the last 50 years. Cleveland has some I think. If the property is worth the cost of rebuilding, they usually just put up a multistory thing, or they build a filing cabinet for the poor.

vester

Really nice work Brian.

It reminds me a little of Tønder in Denmark. Here you also see this deep houses with short street facade.
This was as result of some tax for each meter (or alen it might have been) in the facade:


While we are at Chicago. There are some really nice industrial buildings around the city.

vortext

#251
Quote from: joshua43214 on September 08, 2014, 05:10:45 AM
It's all about ownership and economics. Those places are probably all owned by different people.
Even if they were owned by one person, the cost of tearing down and rebuilding would be prohibitive in the US.

Well I'm not suggesting tearing down and rebuilding for the sake of w2w, obviously. But still, ownership nor dilapidation & re-development is an obstacle for w2w over here. If the latter happens the building at hand is tore down and new one is build to fit snugly in between existing development. It seems to be a rather peculiar cultural difference in building habits I guess.

Quote from: vester on September 08, 2014, 01:47:33 PM
Here you also see this deep houses with short street facade.
This was as result of some tax for each meter (or alen it might have been) in the facade

Yes, this was general practice throughout Europe, hence there're a lot of narrow yet long building. There's even a Dutch word for the living room in such a house: pijpenla.  :)

time flies like a bird
fruit flies like a banana

c.p.

Thanks for the replies APSMS, romualdillo, Frank, Erik, Joshua43214, and Arne

APSMS: Good guesswork  :thumbsup:

romualdillo: I'm trying to keep the whole project in the 1825-1870 range (which is before the fire.)

Frank: I'm not really worried about anyone considering me nuts. $%Grinno$%  I just hope I don't bore anyone (including myself) with overly fussy distinctions.  "OMG! The Italianate window hoods in Oshkosh are 2 cm wider than those in Sheboygan, they can't POSSIBLY be part of the same building set!" - That's the sort of thing I worry about. ::)

Arne: I've seen some great industrial buildings in my Google tours of Chicago, but most of them appear to be early 20th century.  I may invent my own pre-1870 Chicagoesque industrial buildings, however.  ?=mad)=


To add to the W2W discussion:  In my part of the country people will pay a premium for a house that is separated from its neighbors (even if only a meter or two) as compared to an attached townhouse of similar size and quality.  So that "separateness" has significant value to people here, for whatever reason.

Cities in some of the more densely populated areas of the U.S., such as Rhode Island tend to have a similar proportion of W2W residential as cities in areas with vast amounts of open space, such as Montana.  Which tells me the lack of W2W residential in most regions of the U.S. is more a question of personal preferences and/or culture than a question of how much open space there is.

Anyway, here are a few more Chicago-inspired buildings.
These are R$:



And these are CO$$:


noahclem

These buildings are looking great, as always  &apls   Love that old picture of Milwaukee!

art128

Indeed they're looking great. Very lovely. They will make a good addition to my future New England region. :)
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

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Simcoug

Wonderful development!  I am especially excited about the corner diagonal (fire insurance bldg... seems appropriate for Chicago).
I lived in Madison, WI for some time and I had the opportunity to visit Milwaukee and Chicago and admire the wonderful historic architecture.  Both are great towns.
RL has kept me away from SC4 lately, but now that the weather is turning I'm hoping I'll have more time to escape the cold and spend some time building towns again.

carlfatal

I wouldn´t call you nuts. This accuracy is, what makes your BATs so outstanding.

Only thing I can say: want´em!  &apls &apls &apls

Jack_wilds

CP... luv teh new developments... makes for great sim-fun city building...    :thumbsup:

vortext

Great work once again, what else is new?!  $%Grinno$% Really like 121 stockyard.  :thumbsup:

Quote from: art128 on November 07, 2014, 03:51:25 AM
They will make a good addition to my future New England region. :)

Going to try your hand at yet another style? Already looking forward to it.
time flies like a bird
fruit flies like a banana

romualdillo

I like them very much!!!  &apls  I love the Burnham and Gaines Fire Insurance Co.!!   ::)