Christmas urbanism: did Santa get it right?

How to deliver a village of merriment!


The village also includes train infrastructure - enabling easy transport around the land of gingerbread

In the spirit of the festive season, your Black Skivvy correspondent has been doing some mulling (with hot wine), and revisits a festive blog piece that explores the architecture, urbanism, and social aspects of delivering a most suitable ginger bread village. We invite you to take up this design challenge! 


Taking cue from the festive season, our architectural comment and discussion shifts to the architectural and urban issues which are prevalent in the architecture of the Gingerbread House. 

Such a project raises questions both in the urban design for the Gingerbread community, as well as the construction and design decisions. Faced with a fixed square meter-age of dough, the surface can provide a number of alternate designs. With the assistance of CAD, a precise dough calculation and design can be achieved. 

[The same m2 of dough could achieve a large ginger bread house, say a manor house, but the smaller buildings allow a variety of building scales, form, and expression...]

The chosen urban and architectural design takes the form of a pub (community, amenity) and a terrace house. The same m2 could achieve a large ginger bread house (manor), but the smaller buildings allow a variety of building scales, form, and expression. The placement of these can be located so as to create a "village green”, for the community of this gingerbread town to gather. 

Construction considerations: The "Flat pack" ginger bread panels, enables a quick assembly. The decorations, including architectural detailing, are installed after the construction to minimise any potential damage to delicate architectural finishes. 

Town of plenty - a pub, a village square, a jolly tree, and Dickens-like residents enjoying their town this Christmas season

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