The Lacey is a 26-unit, four level, 25,000 SF residential building organized around a three-level central corridor/atrium. Outdoor space is ample with a communal second floor terrace and rooftop, as well as private balconies, courtyards, and terraces for the units.

Photograph ©Anton Grassl/Esto
Located at the southeast corner of Arizona State University’s Tempe campus, The Hassayampa Academic Village encourages the spirit of community by interlacing 1,900 beds with classroom, computing, dining and retail components.

As promised when we introduced the winners of the 2011 COTE Top Ten Green Projects by the American Institute of Architects, we will be posting individual stories about each project. The projects have already been featured in more details on AIA’s web site.

Photograph ⓒ John Linden

We start with by Brooks+Scarpa’s Cherokee Studio in LA, an urban infill, mixed-use, market-rate housing project designed to incorporate green design as a way of marketing a green lifestyle. The project is pending LEED Platinum certification. The design maximizes the opportunities of the mild Southern California climate with a passive cooling strategy using cross-ventilation and thermal convection while taking advantage of the abundantly sunny location. A commitment to minimizing the project's ecological footprint informed all aspects of the design.

The main architectural feature of this project is the building's owner-controlled double-façade system. The occupant is able to adjust the operable screens of the building façade as necessary for privacy, views, shading, and thermal comfort. As a result, the facade is virtually redesigned "live" from within, responding to the occupants of the building in real time. The façade also enhances the existing streetscape and promotes a lively pedestrian environment. By visually breaking up the façade into smaller, articulated moving elements, the building appears to move with the passing cars and people. Like many features of the building, the façade is multivalent and rich with meaning, performing several roles for formal, functional, and experiential effect.

This remarkable project is one of the three recipients of 2011 Housing Awards in the Special Housing category that recognizes outstanding design of housing that meets the unique needs of other specialized housing types such as single room occupancy residences (SROs), independent living for the disabled, residential rehabilitation programs, domestic violence shelters, and other special housing.Photograph ⓒ Scott Adams

Photograph: © Eric Staudenmaier

This project began with the city’s desire to remedy a parking shortage in this specific part of town. The city selected the developer/architect team to address this parking problem and introduce a mixed-use program. The process focused on achieving a balance between public parking, scale, active street presence, and the transition to the hillside neighborhood.

The result is a four story project that provides thirty-one condominiums/town houses, seven affordable studios, 11,600 square feet of retail space, 156 public parking spaces, and sixty-one residential parking spaces.

Photograph: © Brian Rose





We continue our series on the recipients of the 2011 AIA Housing awards with a complex development that  a formerly industrial city block with an innovative housing mix: affordable, urban townhomes to keep growing families in the city, and family townhomes adjacent to senior apartments to prevent seniors from living in isolation.

The senior building, with 116 rental units, serves as the anchor; it houses neighborhood-serving retail and presents an iconic tower at the corner. The LEED-Gold-Registered building features many complementary green strategies, including storm-water management, solar arrays, and healthy interiors.

 

 

Art Stable is an urban infill project in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood. Built on the site of a former horse stable, the seven-story building includes a ground level commercial unit, second-story parking, and five units of adaptable live-work space. Units are designed to accommodate flexibility in use and changes over time.

The concrete structure is designed to take heavy loads, and all structural and mechanical systems are exposed. Units are zoned for both residential and commercial use. Large operable doors on the alley side of the building can be manually opened with a custom-designed hand wheel and hinge. The 80' 5" tall hinge terminates in a davit crane on top of the building, which can lift objects from the alley into each unit.

 

Claredale Street Housing, Karakusevic Carson Architects’ latest project in Bethnal Green, East London for Tower Hamlets Community Housing is now complete and has been awarded the Richard Feilden Award in the 2010 HCA Housing Design Awards.

The project is the first phase of the regeneration of the Mansford Estates and Peachey Edwards, providing 77 homes (40 of which are family homes) in an estate of over 700 residences in a deprived area of Tower Hamlets, East London.

The Estates are characterised by 1960s high-rise towers and lower-rise 5/8 storey blocks interspersed by ill-defined spaces and walkways open to misuse. Claredale Street Housing replaces Bradley House, a medium-rise 8-storey Brutalist block, introducing high quality mixed-tenure housing and greater permeability into the estate. Bradley House was part of a cluster block scheme designed by Denis Lasdun in 1957. One aspect of that scheme – the Grade II listed 16-storey tower Keeling House - has been retained following a radical renovation in 2001 and defines the eastern boundary of the site.