Author(s)

I. MacBurnie

Abstract

Founded on the interrelated principles of flexibility and choice, Flexi-Living presents an innovative approach towards more affordable and sustainable residential design and development. It is a middle ground solution combining the best of urban and suburban design and development, adapted to an industrialized building process featuring prefabrication, green architecture, and the latest technology in concrete, steel, and glass. Flexi-Living comprises a pioneering environment in which change is embraced rather than eschewed, in which mass production is celebrated rather than masked, and in which homeowners are empowered rather than forced to comply with a set of rigid and unalterable norms and standards. It proposes a range of property types, from small lot to large lot, from narrow and deep to wide and shallow. It envisages both neighbourhoods which are transformable rather than fixed for all time, and districts in which a plot of land may be subdivided and sold for profit. It features a range of housing types, from single-family detached homes to loft-like walk-up condominium apartments. It proposes dwellings that are adaptable rather than inflexible, such that, according to a homeowner’s particular desires, a house may be expanded or reduced in size. Flexi-Living is intended for Greenfield sites situated on the edge of major North American cities. However, it is equally applicable to Greyfield and Brownfield redevelopment. Keywords: housing, affordability, sustainability, flexibility, choice, live-work, property, change, empowerment, urbanism. 1 Contemporary (sub)urbanism The three suburban communities sharing the Levittown moniker may never have been esteemed by the architectural, landscape, or planning avant-garde, but they

Keywords

housing, affordability, sustainability, flexibility, choice, live-work, property, change, empowerment, urbanism.