  |
Today's grand suburban house offers an embarrasment of entries, none of which, however, simplify the realities of daily existence. (Photo by Barbara Flanangan) |
| A château on a three-quarter lot may be the American dream, but
it couldn't be less suited to the complex realities of modern
life in the 'burbs.. What upscale suburbanite doesn't want the grand foyer that comes with today's standard château?--that towering shaft of white space graced by a curving staircase and vast chandelier twinkling through palatial windows at the street beyond. The only trouble is, there's no one to twinkle at. The streets, dark and without sidewalks, are empty of everyone but drivers rushing home to their own baronial light fixtures. (And if reverent strollers were to pause in the gutters to gaze at the glowing foyers, security patrols would herd them away.) What's the purpose of pomp then, if it doesn't intimidate? For whom are those chandeliers polished? When a Girl Scout or her Mary Kay mother bangs the brass knocker, the door is never answered by a white-gloved butler from a Fred Astaire movie or by a ringer for Lana Turner descending the steps, with gown flowing behind. No, it's a mom. Or maybe a kid. Undone in warm-ups, the matron seldom leads visitors into the parlor; she processes them right on the threshold or hustles them to the back of the house, where kitchen and den merge into one hyper-casual "great room." Although formal visiting is on the wane, the foyer has curiously kept expanding in inverse proportion to its uselessness. What's atrophied, or disappeared, is the walkway that once connected street to door. The newest subdivisions treat the front steps as garden follies--historic curiosities ringed by shrubs, buffered by lawns, and rendered quaintly inaccessible. Of course, no one uses the front door less than friends and relatives. Indeed, the intimacy of suburban friendships can be measured by the dowdiness of the entry chosen. Close friends plow right through the garage, past a rabbit warren of service spaces, into the kitchen. Realizing that upscale houses need downscale doors, home builders have begun adding secondary front doors that spare the owners the other two slippery options: across the foyer's marble or the garage's oily concrete. But this new proliferation of entries poses an etiquette problem no manual can solve, leaving most suburban mothers flummoxed. As the civilizers of suburbia's frontiers, they are the ones who fuel the friendships and usher children from tract to tract and field to field. Yet even with practice, ushering remains a mystery. Is it pompous to presume to ring at the front door? Or too casual to knock at the secondary front door? Or too intrusive to ferret out the kitchen entrance? None seems right. Ceremonial issues are but a small part of the confusion over suburban ingresses. When working parents shop through mail order and warehouse retailers, they transform houses into distribution centers, which don't necessarily have appropriate delivery areas. No sooner do new goods arrive than old stuff exits as garbage--destined for landfills or specialized recycling plants via a myriad of cans and bins. And where do these go? In their quest to sell comfort and luxe, home builders have avoided the new challenges of consumption and disposal or tried to address them by adding an extra garage or two. Isn't it time to melt down those chandeliers and simply redesign the suburban house? Here's a start: 1. Civic Vestibule: The serendipity of neighborly pop-ins and door-to-door canvassing may be nearly extinct. But before it disappears, why not reserve one cozy air lock for admitting visitors without revealing private life? It just might make homeowners more congenial to strangers dropping by. 2. A Loading and Receiving Dock for Children: Every day, kids are inspected and shipped out with book bags, science projects, dioramas, foul weather gear, sleepover linens and bags, and sports equipment. The process is complex and frantic. What's required is an ample, sheltered dock high enough for easy transfer onto the raised floors of oversize vans and sport utilities. 3. Very Small Neighborhood Vehicles (VSNVs): Domestic or commercial, trucks and vans reign supreme in suburbia. Their unwieldy scale is pushing people and places further apart. A new, diminutive class of short-range vehicles, from bicycles to compact electric cars, might tighten neighborhoods by condensing activities. 4. Errand Dock: Where to park the VSNV? How about a portal with ample storage that opens onto the kitchen. Here, vans could pick up and deliver packages unannounced and local teenagers on VSNVs could expedite errands. 5. The Twenty-first Century Foyer: Shrink the foyer to a smaller scale. Why not a simple display case modeled after the Japanese tokonoma, a niche where objects for contemplation are arranged? Here, homeowners might display pieces commemorating the quaint formality of bygone days: for example, an old photo of prom dates posing under a chandelier in a marbled hall. Barbara Flanagan is a mother, wife, architect, journalist, and political agitator who makes her home in suburban Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She is constantly discovering objects and situations crying out for a creative redesign. |
Keywords:
suburbs, house, entry