The project, which would rise just south of the intersection of 21st Street and Central Avenue, calls for the construction of a 57-unit supportive housing development catering to disabled veterans. The new residences are supported by multiple on-site social service offices. Construction is slated to start in June of 2022.
Architectural Vision
Visually connected to the street, terraced hanging gardens connect and activate the relationship between the residents and the urban community to assist in bringing individual health and wellness. As residents’ daily routines overlap within the stacking gardens, relationships are strengthened, and healing occurs.
Challenged by a narrow urban infill lot with buildings on each side, and an alley to the rear, the design response creates an interior ground floor community services promenade, and terraced overlapping outdoor gardens, as a means to strengthen the building community.
The services promenade provides layers of visual transparency between the building entry, social service offices, community room, and common laundry facilities. As the promenade shifts, spaces are formed from intimate seating nooks to the larger community room.
At the exterior, upon entering the ground floor meditation garden, a resident looks up to terraced gardens varying in geometry and use, from a larger second-floor community garden to multiple levels of overlapping small gathering terraces. The physical connection between multi-level dispersion and varying sizes and uses of the gardens help to define the community.
The upper-level gardens are framed within a cradle represented as a cube. The cube and cradle become a module to define the home, which is repeated from the large-scale building mass to the smaller scale elements of lighting and signage; and appears in the meditation garden as a monolithic sculptural folly.
Sustainability
This project is designed to be Green Point Rated Gold.
