Why We Should Build Courtyard Buildings - with Michael Diamant 

Don't even get me started on Houston. That place is so car dependent, there could be a sidewalk and all of a sudden it cuts off and it's just dirt. They didn't even give people on the sidewalk a second thought but care about adding "1 more lane" because that will surely fix it lmaooo

Houston is the absolute worst

And yet you chose to live there out of all the options available to you

@@user-wx4nv8xr3d I was born and raised here, and all my family and friends here. Wouldn’t know what to do with myself anywhere else 🤷‍♂️

@@user-wx4nv8xr3d um no i am in Orange county

I like the "cut corners" variant in Barcelona very much

There is a double edge sword to that though. Zinskaserne or Mietskaserne were exactly used as the examples of city design failing and creating a very bad urban environment. Berlin was one fo the worst offenders with multi-level deep tenements which made it impossible for emergency services to reach the interior. The whole reason why a turn away from block developments started in the 1920s and 1930s was because these land uses used up a large amount of the construction parcel (for corner buildings it was common to be 85% used) which made for very little available ventilation, light and greenery. In Prague and Vienna you can see that the block designs of the 1850s-1880s were actually very cramped with very little privacy in the interior, while the the City Beautiful and Garden city ideas started shifting to larger blocks around the 1890s-1910s, but neither of these could guarantee sufficient access to greenery, as these interior courtyards were often built up into light industry, parking or storage. That is the whole reason Modernist city planning developed. Even today, Paris' center is really missing adequate green space and that is because of the 1870s densities it still has. It is just more bearable to live in cities now than in the early 1900s when we don't burn coal or have leaded gasoline everywhere.

@@serebii666 but ironically exactly these former miserable Mietskasernen/Zinshäuser districts have become the most desirable areas for people to live in now. That's because of all the advantages of mixed use housing with living, shopping and working close to each other, short distances that can be traveled by foot, bicycle or public transport and beautiful façades and nearby parks for recreational purposes. This shows that the architecture and urban design was great and proven sustainable. The reason for the miserable living conditions back then are more to blame on overpopulation in the cities (10 people having to live in one room) and partially too extreme density with multiple courtyards and tiny apartments. Also problems like coal pollution, hygienic problems due to lack of private toilets and washing facilities and industrial businesses in the courtyards don't exist anymore and. Now we have digital working, co working spaces etc. that are far less problematic.

It's in France dude

Doesn’t surprise me that Germans came up with a word for it lol

Other residents lose tranquility if the courtyard is converted to a noisy playground

@@JudgeHill Not all of them have to have playgrounds. Playgrounds should exist and be in walking distance for kids tho. Is it different from suburbanites saying they want yards so their kids can play there?

In denmark most kids who grow up in copenhagen use their courtyard as a primary playground. They meet the other kids on the block and can freely be there with minimal supervision from parents.

​@@JudgeHill So where are the kids to play? Or maybe we should shut them up inside on their iPads so that you don't have to be bothered by children.

​@@JudgeHillOh no woe is me, CHILDREN have arrived to bother me 😱

I visited Cambridge last year in late spring and I loved every minute of it 🤍

That's the catch, you can't live in them. Those are more expensive to build than modern low cost lightweight buildings.

@@rajadhirajmaharaj have you ever thought for just a second that maybe happiness and quality should be elevated above profit margins for construction companies?

​@joshuanorman2 at this point, money buy happiness to live in oxford or Cambridge

​@@rajadhirajmaharaj I mean those buildings are very much lived in. I spent two of my four years as an undergraduate living in one, like most/many undergraduates

I like your hobby but your attitude that building maintence is simply for the "less educated" seems a bit nasty and judgemental. The design of infrastructure is best when those engineers are educated by hands on experience of maintenance irl. Adherence to maintenance schedules is not a drone job bc troubleshooting and looking for, and early recognition of issues is done by day to day "lower educated" hard working and caring people. TLDR check your contempteous attitude on maintenance workers bc it shows you are lacking in education on both sociology and engineering systems.

You know that modern buildings can form courtyards too? Just like in German and Austrian cities, where many buildings had to be replaced after WW2, they still kept the courtyard layout ;)

I was just thinking that, that a courtyard building will only work where land prices are relatively low, otherwise, it'll be filled in with more building.

It works very well if building into the courtyard is forbidden. In the US that can be done through zoning laws.

It will make property prices and rent higher tho. A rule like that needs to be followed by good infrastructure to farther away aereas otherwise more people will be forced into long commute times​@@miketackabery7521

There are also a ton in Aarhus, DK!

Could you elaborate? Some people say art is useless. There's videos called I hate pretty girls and says beautiful people are bad. I like art and some beauty, but I like diversity too.

There’s an example of this in the video too. It was my thought on how long till that became more building or parking space? Some of the apartments in Texas in places like Houston are designed from the beginning in a way that puts a parking garage in the middle of an apartment building with an interior hallway just outside of the garage and the apartment doors off that interior hallway and the apartments facing the street.

I'd like to push back against the idea that cities are noisy, and suggest that it is cars that are noisy. There are some urbanist RU-vid videos that discuss this idea.

@@kylehendra6740 I do agree in principle. Yet in my very central inner city courtyard the loudest noise is in fact the street cars rumbling around the corner :D

Curiously because I’ve never been, is Barcelona a walkable city?

@angelinicruz6494 It is, very much so. And initially building blocks were designed with amazing private green spaces in each square of buildings, but then people started building inside of these green spaces, going away from the wishes of the original architect who made the plans from a quality of life perspective.

@@angelinimartini Depends on your meaning but yes, when I've visited I walked everywhere.

Some people can't afford to build beautiful ornate buildings or afford to keep it clean. Are hospitals maximizing function helping people?

@@user-gu9yq5sj7c Aesthetic is not a non-function, it is a function. Stop thinking as if its separate.

Well yes we do have to build differently, because the methods and technology have changed but does that mean we can't create that style of beauty from past styles, you are not restricted, you can do it. What you are doing is that you are doing is following a person's ideology and not yours, learn to defend your beliefs and not be afraid to liking different things even if they are unpopular.

I don't get it. Is this an American thing?

They've been saying that for the past 50 years sadly. Now we live in a terribly ugly world full of architectural monstrosities.

​@@AlexTrusk91 Go to Hong Kong or China It made America house planning look sane

Funnily enough, they were already saying this in 1923 (and we see the results)

Well then the block/ courtyard is too small 😅.

@@fjellyo3261 It wasn’t smaller than the one shown in the video. We technically had two courtyards over decades of mismanaged building plans. So it was a prolonged courtyard, unfortunately placed perpendicular to the suns path.

Some courtyards are ok. Parks are fine too.

almost all buildings are built that way in my city (paris) , no homeless people, the courtyard is private and not in free access, people open the windows all day long, and appartments with living room facing street and bedrommon courtyard are the most sought for. Everyone wants one of those, people pay fortune not to end up in modern buildings.

almost all buildings are built that way in my city (paris) , no homelesspeople, the courtyard is private and not in free access, people open the windows all day long, and appartments with living room facing street and bedroom on courtyard are the most sought for. Everyone wants one of those, people will pay a fortune not to end up in modern buildings.

They should team up with Polish developers to make the most smallest and ugliest shit possible. 5m2 with ladder to 2nd floor would be a luxury XD

I think it's more that some modern designers are thinking how can they design something cheap, utilitarian, new, or trendy. Tho some artists do want to create some ugly things.

Let's not exagerate, belgium has some really. beautifull buildings

​@@user-gu9yq5sj7ccheap, utilitarian, new? Sounds like those ugly Soviet resident buildings we can still see to this day in former USSR states and in East Germany.....

​@@jonson856in many cases it is ironically the same. But now because of capitalism.

If they're tiny they're not courts

​@@johnperic6860 no no, you can actually get sunlight if you make a gap on the side facing the sun. this way no matter how tall, sunlight will go through those gaps into the courtyard.

There is a thing called a setbacks. Evey country that has a building code requires them to have setbacks.

Rome was actually one of the most preserved cities by the 19th century, having not undergone significant planning unlike Paris or London. As for "first modern" it depends what you determine as first. Bologna has organized city expansion and development in the 12th century, and Prague's New Town, laid out by Emperor Charles IV in the mid 14th century, created blocks and streets that terminate into main public squares, as well as urban planning with religious impenti. The Ideal City, developed during the Renaissance was applied in Zamość, Poland before Sixtus V's plans in Rome, which was not really modern planning, as he only directed a few main avenues, rather than new planned districts. Palmanova is a better example that was contemporaneous to Sixtus's urban plan.

The first (among important cities) was Prague with the Nove Mesto expansion, which was planned but still acknowledged existing periurban roads (as well as St. Veceslav square, which was the old horse market and became the new focal point). Sixtus V and the not mentioned enough Paolo III as well as others, did a great job in Rome in blending Renaissance principles with the medieval fabric, suit with the city's traffic which was focused on the Basilicas. And it lasted untile the 1800's, before the city was ruined by the Savoyard invaders

Well it you prefer traffic noise over human voices you can't be helped anyhow

@@noreligionisthebestreligion I prefer neither but trust me, I currently live sandwiched between a high-traffic road and a council estate...and traffic is much easier to mentally tune out (due to being rather monotonous) in comparison to the neighbours constantly screaming and blasting music. The best solution I've personally experienced is the French or early Commie method - "slice type" blocks of apartments, sufficiently spaced and the spaced filled with trees. You still get some noise from antisocial fuckers who should never breed, but there's no acoustic well effect and the trees dampen the noise significantly, while also providing visual privacy and heat lowering.

We can and should have both private and public spaces. Watch Not Just Bikes third place. There's not enough walkable community city design and places to hang out at. Particularly in North America. Not everyone can afford things like private suburbs, places, or facilities.

Yes and no, developers build what will sell/rent, but they don't really build what people want because that would add to the expense without adding to the profit. Example: apartment buildings with exterior decorations. The public likes exterior decorations and an apartment building that has them will rent out fast, but the public will not pay more if the interior is no different. So the apartment buildings are always drab and monotonous because it doesn't pay to build attractive ones.