Family-Sized Housing in Single-Stair Buildings: Testing the Urban Residential Zone

Abstract

This thesis builds off of work done for my Master of Urban Planning Thesis, “Regulatory Paths to a More Diverse Housing Stock: Encouraging Family-Sized, Single-Stair Apartments in Seattle’s Single-Family Neighborhoods with the Urban Residential Zone.” Both documents explore the implementation of a new zoning designation in Seattle that would introduce single-stair, point access, small apartment buildings into the city's existing single-family neighborhood, with the intention of creating more family-sized rental or condo units, and a greater variety of housing generally. The architectural portion of the project, in this document, explores design strategies as well as some of the economic realities of building larger units in multifamily projects.