By Design: Affordable Lessons

by Jane Griswold An “affordable” house is compact and simple to build. Wouldn’t it be nice if it were also attractive, easy to live in, and even spacious in a place or two? The Greater Lawrence, Mass., Habitat for Humanity board asked me to design duplexes that would be all of those things. They needed an easily built (by volunteer labor), inexpensive, 24×40 two-story box containing two three-bedroom units. Since I had designed modular housing and variations for standard subdivisions, this seemed a straightforward job. My first design wasn’t bad (see Figure 1). It met the criteria and fit the site, and we figured the layout would allow a family to use the living room separately, as an in-law