Problem
At densities of 15 to 30 houses per acre, row houses are essential. But typical row houses are dark inside, and stamped from an identical mould.
Solution
For row houses, place houses along pedestrian paths that run at right angles to local roads and parking lots, and give each house a long frontage and a shallow depth.
Related Patterns
… in certain parts of a community, the detached homes and gardens of a House Cluster (37) will not work, because they are not dense enough to generate the denser parts of Density Rings (29) and Degrees of Publicness (36). To help create these larger patterns, it is necessary to build row houses instead.
Make the individual houses and cottages as long and thin as possible - Long Thin House (109); vary the houses according to the different household types - The Family (75), House for a Small Family (76), House for a Couple (77), House for One Person (78); build roads across the paths, at right angles to them - Parallel Roads (23), Network of Paths and Cars (52), with small parking lots off the roads - Small Parking Lots (103). In other respects build row houses in clusters House Cluster (37), Building Complex (95) …
Alexander, Christopher. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. Oxford University Press, 1977, p. 204.