Ribbon Farm

Ribbon Farm along Detroit River
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Detroit1796.jpg)

Ribbon farms (also known as strip farms, long-lot farms, or just long lots) are long, narrow land divisions, usually lined up along a waterway. In some instances, they line a road.

The size of ribbon farms can vary from lot to lot and from place to place. In Illinois, these lots could be a quarter mile or more long and only 30–40 feet wide. Near Detroit, the ribbon farms were about 250 feet wide and up to three miles long. In Texas, lots could be as small as ten acres in area, or as large as five miles by twenty miles.

Farmers of ribbon farms typically, although not universally, built houses on the farm along the river such that the houses on a series of ribbon farms were located near each other. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribbon_farm)

From the map, it is easy to tell the influence of historical ribbon farm on current urban fabric in Delray. Thus when our group proposed the urban design for Delray we decided to keep this ribbon farm concept as the logic to organize our proposal. The purpose of keeping ribbon farm logic is to maximize the accessibilities to the water and infrastructure.