This book aims to bring together current thinking on the design of residential areas to provide a comprehensive source of practical advice for anyone responsible for the layout of a residential scheme. It tries, in particular, to combine current thinking about residential layout with reference to a wide range of examples of good practice from actual schemes. This is done so that the practical value of the ideas presented in this book is always apparent.

Housing environments take up the majority of developed land and we spend long periods of our life within them. As such the way that they are designed can simply make our lives a pleasure, or they can make it hard for us to live our lives the way that we would like. How they are designed can, in particular, open up or reduce opportunities for us. It is important that in planning any residential scheme, designers are conscious of the design choices that are available to them so that these can be either encouraged or rejected through the design process. This book aims, therefore, to suggest that there is a whole range of design options available to us in the design of residential schemes. It also tries to show us what the consequences of the design choices that we might make are, so that, as designers, we are informed in our decision-making.

This book is not about residential architecture, and it won’t tell you how to design and construct a house. Instead, it is a book about residential urban design. In this respect the use of the term ‘urban’ is loose, and merely refers to situations in which a group of buildings come together to form villages, towns or cities. The focus is more specifically on the places that are created as a result of the planning and layout of individual homes–more explicitly the gardens, streets, yards, parks and other

attributes that characterise the spaces between our homes. This book points out the problems associated with particular approaches to laying out houses. In particular, it aims to be optimistic and encourage an understanding of the possibilities that are realised when the planning of a housing scheme is undertaken.