Rethinking the American Front Yard: Formal and informal interventions in the ubiquitous lawn

Brief history of the origins of both the front yard and the typical American suburban landscape

Examine the cultural underpinnings of the American front yard, and how the resulting landscape contrasts with other countries’ development typologies

Look at attempts to transform the front yard, and what is driving this trend: informal and formal

What are the lessons to be taken away for planning practitioners, as well as for everyday residents?

The origin of the front yard and the American suburban landscape are very much derived from the English and an idealized view of the English countryside.

Rowhouses were the precursor to the single-family home. Their outdoor gathering spaces were set to the back to the house.

The single-family home with the front-yard setback is simply a cousin of this approach, fueled by changes in transportation, plentiful land, the agrarian ideal.

The single-family home with the front-yard setback is simply a cousin of this approach, fueled by changes in transportation, plentiful land, the agrarian ideal.

Class implications of a used front yard vs. a backyard

Contrast with the Spanish approach to housing design, as seen in Mexico.

The courtyard model and its relation to the street.

The courtyard model and its relation to the street: permeability.

Contemporary urban development in Mexico still follows this pattern even with the rise of the automobile.

This approach to front yards has crossed the border and been applied to the conventional American suburban landscape, particularly in LA.

The front yard is transformed from a purely aesthetic space into one that is both for socializing and ornamentation.

This is an entirely informal intervention in the landscape.

Changes in front yards in Minnesota have also been largely informal, and culture-based - in this case, values and attitudes surrounding sustainability and the environment

Growing concern over how many resources lawns consume

Also an interest in more social interaction and being neighborly

Sample front yard transformed: vegetable beds

Sample front yard transformed: gathering areas

Sample front yard transformed: habitat

Sample front yard transformed: landscape

Thus far, interventions have been informal, but are starting to become formalized: Amending zoning code to allow larger and taller planting beds in front yards

Challenges: On the formalization side, perennial problem of being overly prescriptive; need to allow for some design flexibility

Challenges: Some guidelines are needed so as to avoid this kind of thing. The majority of people are fine with more plants in the front yard, as long as they are contained by clean edges and turf.

Challenges: Water needs of turf grass vs. those of plants in planting beds

Recommendations: Formalizing the design side: Unrealistic to think all residents are going to hire a designer. Create a series of design workshops sponsored by cities. Residents take away general principles.

Recommendations: Write guidelines in a way that allows for design flexibility while still ensuring a general level of tidiness to the landscape (e.g. “managed natural landscape”, define what a weed is)

Recommendations: We need to generate demand for varieties of low-water turf grass available in sod form.

THANK YOU.