What is a Townhouse? Architecture, Features, and Character

What is a Townhouse? Architecture, Features, and Character is the second article on projects from practice. A townhouse is a type of residential building. It shares walls with other similar units in a complex or row. Townhomes typically have multiple floors, often including a garage on the ground level, and share some features like a common swimming pool area and external landscape.

The townhouse complex project is located in a high-class residential area called Jumeriah. The location is at the coastal front of the Arabian Gulf. This area was residential in terms of land use and planning classification till late 2006. that has the characteristics of various architectural design styles. The plot is located in a modern development completed and under development to date called Al Bada’a in one of the UAE cities of the Middle East Area. At the start of the development, all plots were designed in various architectural styles most of them in a typical Mediterranean-style villa architecture. A couple of years from 2006, the permission of local authorities permitted locals who own a street frontage façade to convert the villa to commercial use without changing land densities to protect its low-density character. The owner obtained approval to build the townhouse complex project including the ground and two stories with special permission.

The client decided to build the townhouse complex due to the high demand for residential units in this area and the high rents as well. As illustrated in the plan of the ground floor the architecture is a semi-open open-plan system of living and dining area that has access and view to the garden from the main entrance. The plan consists of the main spaces used in a local villa such as a maid room and services and isolated garage. The plan is small in area to respond to client demand for designing as many units as possible. The ground floor in the complex has a common and shared external wall that separates each townhouse from the other. The ground floor level is raised from the datum 0.00 by 50cm for service connections and waterproof protection. The total townhouse unit area is 250 Sqm built up area.

The first-floor plan is designed to include all the non-noisy areas in the bedrooms. Every bedroom was treated as a master bedroom with its separate bath and dress. The floor plan also has a small pantry which opens to a family living area. A common balcony with its Mediterranean style attached to the family and master bedroom.

The second-floor plan includes a bedroom with its services. The floor with two terraces that are designed to serve as a sitting area and to locate all services units of AC, water supply, and other services.

Turning to the external façade and the overall form of architectural design the townhouse complex is of Mediterranean style. The use of materials stone cladding and clay tiles on shallow pitched roofs with its stunning red color. The balcony design and its railing simulate the style detailing and form. All cornices, projections, niches, and corbels are borrowed from the Mediterranean style architecture as shown in the façade drawings.

The section shows the internal way of dealing with openings, arches, and projection cornices similar to the Mediterranean style detailing.

The 3d sketch gives an overall impression of the massing and the architecture of the solid and void of the external façade. The massing created lots of shade and shadows that gave depth to the architecture and a variety of impressions about the texture, color, details, block mass, and the full townhouse complex row façade of continuous lines and projections. The project includes 16 townhouses and was completed in 2008.

This project was a successful investment in various terms. The first location of the development is in a high-class area that gives it luxury value, the architecture of combined units and its fairly lower construction cost made it price competitive with its surrounding, the successful market study of the real estate in the area gave a plus full occupant in very limited time length, and the townhouses could be converted to commercial use these days and that is a more profit advantage.