Firmstone Reserve, Pagewood

Declared 8 October 1929. See it here, and read the reviews. 

One interesting thing about this space is that its original designer, Geoffrey Robin, envisaged it having quite a wide frontage onto Park Parade. Somebody obviously decided those extra few housing lots were too good to pass up.

This plan is DP16792E NSW State Archives, retrieved by me 9 October 2001

Marcus Hook/Aston Village in Mare of Easttown

At the risk of seeming like the guy who watches random tv shows and finds internal reserves everywhere, I watch random tv shows, and I find internal reserves everywhere. This is an exception because (1) it's not Finnish! And (2) I thought I found some, but I was wrong, but then I found some.

Right from the very first scene of Mare of Easttown (in the location I think seen above) I thought I was looking at houses which backed on to internal reserve spaces of some sort. Clearly back doors of houses within a block were visible to each other, and somehow between those back doors there was publicly accessible space. However, it wasn't clear - beyond low-rise fences - what was between those back doors. That was, until I went looking at a very convenient website that details (apparently) all the locations of the show. From this I came to appreciate that the place that piqued my interest (above) is actually in Marcus Hook, and constitutes a narrow grid block which has a public pathway down the middle, and very long backyards, but no shared space (aside from the path). You can see it (or at least an example of it) here. 

Oddly though before I found the abovementioned website, I went searching in both Aston Township and Chester County. Aston Township features many internal reserve spaces. They include Hidden Park, Aston and Bridgewater Farms Park and Sampson Park also in Aston Township. These don't seem to feature in the show at all (well, I haven't finished watching it yet)...

Update: after watching the entire show, and without wishing to spoil anything, I will say the rear path plays a key role in the denouement of the show. It's very clear that the gardens/yards at the rear of the Marcus Hook blocks are big, empty and essentially useless spaces. 

Mitä meistä tuli

In the 2009 Finnish film Mitä meistä tuli (What became of us), two main characters have a special dinner (snails) on their porch in Helsinki.* The shots are only of the two over each other's shoulders but it is clear they are seated in a small private area which opens up into a public, forested area. There is ambient noise of children's (?) play and other conversations in the background, i.e., they are home but they are also in a public space. This image demonstrates the nature of the partitioned porches (there is no doubt another word for these but I can't think of one):

The above image is a better view of the nature of the space - a lawn and dense foliage.

You could be forgiven for dismissing this as merely my fetishisation of Finnish society but also I would like to draw your attention to the way in which this casually (possibly unconsciously as it's so ordinary) explores the way in which a household can go about its private business in public - as one would, I suppose, in a restaurant or going on a walk. 

* I don't think Helsinki is stated but if it's not Helsinki it's 'Anycity, Finland' 

'Build City for Motor Age' 1928

Knoxville News-Sentinel 25 March 1928 p. 36
 

Hundred Houses Homes, Cambridge UK

A plan by C. W. Craske for an estate established by the Hundred Houses Society in Cambridge includes a large playground behind buildings, in this instance from conservationist necessity rather than ideology. ‘The site of a medieval moated farm has been preserved as a children’s playground, and forms a central feature of the scheme, while the rather awkward shape of the site and problems of levels for sewerage have been countered by the use of four culs-de-sac springing fanwise from the children’s playground.’ Craske’s plan appears to have been rejected. 

To be honest since I can't locate where it was meant to be, I am not even sure this is an internal reserve - what was adjoining the section at the bottom of this plan? 

‘Hundred Houses Society, Ltd.’ Town and Country Planning Vol IV no 13 1935 p.18 (illustration p. 19) 

'Socialist Housing District in Bucharest'

 

Currently contextless, as I have to find a way to read the article it's from, by Juliana Maxim, 'Planning the Socialist Housing District in Bucharest and the Soviet influence, 1947–1960' Southeastern Europe 41:2  

Jädraås, Sweden

In Peter Collymore, The Architecture of Ralph Erskine, Academy Editions, London 1995 p. 54. Jädraås is here but I can't find these spaces.