11 VotesYear: 2016|Entry Categories: Unbuilt Project

The Terraces at the Park

This conceptual design reflects a collaborative process between the owners, design team, neighborhood stakeholder group, and several overseeing departments of a major municipality. The site is located in a prominent quarter where a single family neighborhood abuts a high-value public park and a commercial district, with the recent addition of a segment of a multi-use trail.

The immediate plan for this urban node is that the single family neighborhood, public park and commercial area will be linked by extending the multi-use trail. The project sought to resolve the relationship of a high-density mixed-use program transitioning into a single family neighborhood. Being at such a central location, it was important to the owners and design team that the project provide a vision for the neighborhood and city as an exemplar, vibrant, mixed-use environment. Neighborhood retail components as well as public spaces are knit into the fabric of the development. The end result is a new community that is sensitive to and works with the scale of the existing neighborhood, but also responds successfully to the future potential and use(s) of the surrounding commercial areas and multi-use trail.

Design + Innovation: The project’s architecture features a terracing form that steps down from the taller levels of the condominium building, showcasing maximum views of the park and city skyline. As the building terraces down, it amicably meets the scale of the single family homes situated across the street. Daylighting studies were performed to decrease shading of these residences. The massing of the condominium building was studied to mimic concepts often found in established urban settings – the result was a mix of a “podium” concept (where the base of a building is clearly articulated) and a “city block” concept (where the building is broken up into several masses). This allows for a building form that best fits the varying scales of the surrounding communities.

Inherent within the forward-looking design is the understanding that this urban node, with its large historic central park and multi-use trail with likelihood of future light rail, has a precedent for greater upward density. There is already an 11-story building in the block directly across the busy thoroughfare. The design recognizes and capitalizes upon the area’s existing urban tempo.

The design team’s landscape architect studied the part of the development that will abut the multi-use trail. The proposed designs resolved and expanded the usability of public and private areas at the edges of the trail. The owners dedicated a part of the private realm in this trailside transitional space as a publicly-shared pocket park.

The end result is a highly aesthetic concept design that is sensitive to and inclusive of the surrounding neighborhood; that supports smart growth via appropriate upward density and a more walkable community; one that optimizes the multi-use trail and creates beauty and interest in the interstitial spaces along the development; and that creates a small greenspace that is shared with the public.