Boston Townhouse Pattern Analysis

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Advising on appropriate townhouse regulations

Primary Projects was hired by the City of Boston to create zoning recommendations for townhouses on larger lots (greater than 4,800 square feet or wider than 60 feet).

This involved:

Analyzing existing nonconformities across six neighborhoods,
Analyzing variances in proposed projects across the city,
Determining common townhouse parcel sizes,
Creating test fits with and without parking,
Visualizing the work for technical and lay audiences,
Creating zoning recommendations, and
Packaging the work into a final report.

Six townhouses in two rows on an infill lot; each unit has its own inward-facing garage

We tracked key architectural & zoning metrics across the 30+ test fits

At the beginning of the work, we parsed similar terms in the current zoning, and created diagrams to help non-professional audiences understand them

In the 650+ existing townhouses we studied, the most common nonconformities (i.e. aspects of the properties that would require zoning relief today) were the setbacks

Click through the gallery below to learn more about the project ︎︎︎