Roger Sherwood

When I found this book at the Newberry Book Fair (one of my favorite book-related events from my days living in Chicago) I was working on multi-family housing projects in Chicago and Korea. This book was perfect for precedent studies, even though it was published in the late 1970s and most of the projects are much older (pre-Pruitt Igoe). What makes it great is given away on the cover: thorough drawings that give a look inside the projects. Sure, there are plans and photographs accompanying the descriptions, but Sherwood supplies cutaway axons for a number of the projects, such as the Unité d'Habitation by Le Corbusier that graces the cover. The other benefit of the book is its selection, 32 notable examples of housing that were selected for their importance as prototypes, as the author lays out. The prototypical nature of the projects is described in the case studies, which are separated into chapters such as Towers and Rowhousing, but it is also found in a long introduction that examines the different unit types (single-view, double-view, etc.) and building types (single-loaded corridor, double-loaded corridor, etc.), what are often the basis of housing designs.

In 2002, Sherwood created a website, Housing Prototypes, that extends the reach of the book with more information on some of the projects and lots more projects completed since the book's publication. It appears that the website has been updated at least as recently as 2012. (Update: the Housing Prototypes website no longer exists, apparently, but can be found via archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20181007173655/http://housingprototypes.org/)… (more)