Statement

PRINCIPLES:
- maintain character of existing street edges
- minimize new site infrastructure
- anticipate phasing
- create direct access from public streets to all units
- create direct access from all units to community open space
- provide every unit with private open space: yard, deck or roof
- build sustainably using low-tech measures:
density, cross-ventilation, grass parking and green roofs

Laying out a single new street allows all new units to be sited directly on a public street. The new street is fronted by condo buildings. Habitat single family houses are sited along existing streets. Community gardens, framed by both condo buildings and Habitat houses, serve the residents of both. Each condo building, or Double Wide, comprises seven condominiums organized around a central scissor stair. Residents park under the building along the street. From here, they arrive to their building entrance located on a walkway connecting to the community gardens beyond. Each floor has a different porch/deck configuration based on its vertical position in the building. With at least two exposures, all units can be cross ventilated. The material is CMU. In the Habitat House, or Triple High, residents also arrive with a view to the community gardens: they park in their side yard which connects to the open space beyond. When the car is away, this structured grass surface becomes a play area. In addition, by reducing the number of cars, residents can increase the size of their yard.

Jury Comments

Not only does this design most closely recognize and incorporate the existing orientation of the site, it does so while addressing, with generosity, the residents’ desire for open communal spaces where they may gather and garden. Jurors also were impressed by the way the design anticipates different types of encounters and different types of spaces, the way it organizes the site through attention to spatial detail and circulation between the private and semi-private spaces of the courtyards. The street is at a scale appropriate to the neighborhood context. In the words of juror Marion Dudley, who currently resides at Sunrise Trailer Court, “This one said ‘home’ to me. It’s more like our own home that we have now than any of the other entries.”