Also a huge number of people in the US travel to places that are walkable:
- Disney World
- Las Vegas (The strip is anyway)
- DC
- NYC
The answer is to create shade. At those angles, you can find shade at any given time.
This is in frigging Phoenix Arizona. Nothing is walkable in 120 degrees.
Phoenix has a couple of these self contained communities already. The parking lot could be for people outside the community to come and visit the shops.
That’s like 48°C, pretty hot! I don’t think I could walk around in that. I take back some of my criticism.
Surely they need trees and covered areas though, not just boxy houses jammed in together like crooked teeth.
This part is my speculation, but the tightness, aside from shade, might be to give the illusion of small community solitude from the inside. Tempe is a very built -out city. More open, and you’ll be looking at all the typical American sprawl bullshit and probably a freeway or two
I think you’re correct. I think this was likely min/maxing on the designers part. Assuming there were open / and ‘green’ spaces inside or within, say, a cluster of these I’m sure it would be generally acceptable for most people. My fear with designs such as these is vertical creep. What is nice and functional at 2-3 stories becomes a dystopian concrete labyrinth quite rapidly.
Shade is good - been in the south for 8ish years for work - It gets toasty down here.
A combination of artificial shade and greenery can have multiple benifits. (where applicable obviously - not all regions can support it nor should they try)
Shade can be functional too. There’s been some interesting research into panels/pigments that radiate infared light at the wavelength that can escape our atmosphere producing a cooler than ambient surface that could have a variety of uses. A ton of recent advances in solar technology as well.