A century ago, there were a wide range of housing types throughout American cities and towns. Until very recently, there were only two American for-sale housing types being built: single-family homes (attached and detached) and multi-story condominium buildings. Partners in business and in life Dan and Karen Parolek of Opticos Design set out to change that in 2010. They began by questioning why this middle-size housing has gone missing from American cities beginning at the end of World War II. Then they built their Missing Middle site, which garnered wide acclaim. Their Missing Middle Housing book laid the proposition out in greater detail afterward. Get one. Or several, for all your city planners and administrators.
This page is an ever-growing collection of Missing MIddle Housing types, arranged according to Opticos' arrangement of Core and Upper types. The Core types are most common, and are meant to fit comfortably into a neighborhood street beside single-family homes. Upper types have greater size and unit counts, and are more likely to occur along mixed-use streets at the edge of neighborhoods. Currently, this catalog consists of a photo and description of each type, but this will be augmented by SketchUp massing models of each type in a range of block types.
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