Basics of Infill Development

In urban planning, infill is the utilization of land within an already built-up area. Often this means new construction between existing buildings, usually on the sites of derelict lots. In Jersey City, Denis Carpenter turned a 1,300-square-foot lot sandwiched between a row house and a public basketball court into a modern home that riffs on the traditional houses around it in its scale and design.

Carpenter poses outside his house, which is shoehorned into a tiny nonconforming lot among a block’s worth of older row houses and a derelict public park.