An atlas & a proposal
The Courtyard Block
European mid-rise living, starting in Berkeley.
Most American cities offer two shapes of home: a house with a driveway, or a tower with a garage. The everyday European city is a third thing — five to seven stories, shops on the ground floor, a private courtyard in the middle, a tram or a wide sidewalk out front. People live above the bakery. Children play in the Hof. The roof is a garden.
This site is an atlas of that building, and a proposal to start one in Berkeley.
The buildings already exist
Open the atlas →
La Borda
Barcelona · 2018 · co-op
Kalkbreite
Zürich · 2014 · over a tram depot
Spreefeld
Berlin · 2014 · on the river
R50
Berlin-Kreuzberg · 2013
Sargfabrik
Vienna · 1996 · factory reuse
Brutopia
Brussels · 2015
Bijgaardehof
Ghent · factory reuse
Swan's Market
Oakland · 2000
Vauban
Freiburg · a whole district
.jpg){kind=link}
Eixample fabric
Barcelona · the anonymous block
01
See it
Eleven-plus buildings, from Barcelona co-ops to a Zurich block over a tram depot, that already run this life as ordinary city.
02
Understand why it is rare here
Zoning, parking, egress code, and finance quietly made the European default block illegal — not impossible.
03
Propose it in Berkeley
A concrete brief, three site scenarios, and a first-year path for a founding group of households.
The brief
One, two, three, a block
The replication unit is one building. Then the pattern repeats — the way Berlin and Vienna were actually made.
One building
Two, shared Hof
Three, a court
The proposal
Read the Berkeley proposal — the brief, the corridors, and three ways to start. →