New Urbanism on Goldsmith Street

Goldsmith Street is a development of 105 homes in Norwich, England. It was completed in 2019 and has drawn an extraordinary amount of attention. The architects, Mikhail Riches and Cathy Hawley, won the Royal Institute of British Architects' coveted Stirling Prize, and so many people have come to tour the little neighborhood that some residents have begun to complain: "“Yes we live in really nice places, but that doesn’t mean we are here to be gawped at."

The praise comes in a variety of forms. Socialists love it that this is real, old-fashioned council housing, built by the local government using public funds; "not a profit-hungry developer in site," as the Guardian put it. The tenants pay their rent to the local government and the rents can't be raised without a vote of the council.

Environmentalists love it that the buildings use passive solar heating to meet the world's most exacting green standards, the Passivhaus certification from Germany.

British traditionalists love it that the local council passed over a bunch of designs for concrete apartment blocks in favor of this townhouse community. The streets are not wide enough to meet contemporary standards, but the architects were able to get an exemption:

They took inspiration from the city’s Golden Triangle, a desirable neighbourhood of Victorian terraced houses. This provided a useful lesson on density: planning rules would usually require at least 21 metres between facing homes, to prevent overlooking, but these popular historic terraces were just 14 metres apart. The architects used the precedent to argue that this new neighbourhood could be just as humanely scaled, while fitting in more homes.

The result, one critic said, is "dense without being oppressive." 

The residents like the solid houses and low utility bills. The place was built with families and children in mind; cars are excluded from the inner streets and, the architects say, "Every home has car-free access to play."

The RIBA notes that there has been a lot of attention to detail:

Tireless work by the architects has kept the standard of workmanship up to a very high level. Social tenants get impressively high specification interiors – in both the end-of-terrace flats and the central terrace houses. Passivhaus detailing has nicely accommodated the mechanical ventilation Heat Recovery (MVHR) units in the interiors, and the services intakes have been intelligently controlled. Each dwelling has a range of providers’ services pre-wired, so that they can be connected on demand, without the need for a service providers’ to come in later and drill through vital vapour barrier lines.

Of course this isn't gorgeous or anything like that, but it sure beats concrete apartment blocks, and the overall density works out about the same. We really can do better by our fellow humans if we put our minds to it.