2006 Notable Projects: Housing
Vol.01 No.03

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Architypes’ Notable Projects
Architype finds inspiration in projects that somehow redefine our understanding of a certain typology.  Through good design, these architects created smart and forward thinking solutions to the particular constraints or challenges presented by each project.  Grouped together by type, they provide a survey of innovation taking place at several different scales, promoted by both large and small firms. Presented here in the words and images of their own creative team, the following projects also offer an index of ideas and solutions as well as creative people and products within the industry.

Yerba Buena Lofts, San Francisco, California
Stanley Saitowitz Office/Natoma Architects Inc.

Tim Griffith Photographer

The site fronts Folsom and Shipley Streets, in the middle of the block between Fourth and Fifth Streets. The building has two hundred loft-style residences, parking, and ground-floor work space. The project is modeled on the city: a vertical grid is extruded, establishing a series of “lots” for lofts.
Within this concrete egg crate, translucent-glass-cube “bay windows” alternate with balconies in a musical composition, creating an image both familiar and new and synthesizing the South of Market industrial type with the traditional San Francisco domestic streetscape. The bays and balconies are two stories high, reflecting the lofty interiors. Channel glass on the outermost face of the bays provides radiant interior light and a veil to the city beyond. Clear sliding glass carves out the balconies, which have guardrails of bar grating, both open and transparent. The glass cubes project above the roof, creating an articulated geometric skyline. The 338-foot-long Folsom Street facade is divided by two recesses into three zones; the eastern recess leads to the lobby. Four floors of parking, flanked on both Folsom and Shipley Streets by two-story loft units, are embedded in the lower section of the building, which matches the typical forty-foot-height of surrounding buildings. On these floors, parking is at the same level as residential.
Above on the Folsom side are six more floors of two-story lofts; the Shipley side is set back, making a city wall along Folsom. Each unit has a doubleheight interior and a private exterior and offers optimal open space and volume. Galley kitchens and compressed zones for bathrooms, stairs, and storage maximize the free space of these lofts, inviting inhabitants to personalize and customize their spaces. In this dense urban area, cubic feet replace square feet as a measure: the limited area is amplified by volume, producing generosity. The Yerba Buena building is in the tradition of matter-of-fact industrial buildings that have been converted to lofts, robust frames that support habitation and personalization. All units have connected indoor/outdoor spaces. Double-height private balconies are typical, with large urban decks where the upper portion of the structure steps back on the Shipley side. These spaces offer a connection to the climate and culture of California, maintaining a tradition that originated with Spanish courtyards and continues with the trellised decks and garden living so prevalent in the Bay Area. The entry sequence also shares this lineage—urban court, private plaza, dry garden; roofed and protected, yet open and connected. This ambiguity between inside and outside is the introduction to the experience of the building and a way of establishing the character of the Yerba Buena Lofts. The building is poured-in-place concrete, with post-tensioned floors. A systemized and repetitive method that uses flying forms for floors and standardized forms for the egg-crate walls/columns (wallums) is fast and simple, exchanging time for material, facilitating higher quality. Two trades produce the sealed envelope—concrete and glazing—in contrast to the seven trades that follow each other in sealing a typical stucco and window facade. As soon as the forms were stripped, the structure was complete and ready to be glazed. No scaffolding was used; the building basically built from itself. The concrete and the transparent and translucent glass are simultaneously durable and enduring. Concrete is exposed as finish on interior and exterior: the lobby floor is the structural slab saw-cut in stripes and stained; all ceilings are concrete. The actual materials and construction are the final object. The patterned facade dissolves the figure of the building, creating the texture of street grain and expressing the mass. At night, the translucent-glass-cube bays, framed by the concrete grid, make a glowing lantern for Folsom Street and the city skyline.

Owner
YBL LLC

Architect
Stanley Saitowitz Office/Natoma Architects Inc.
www.saitowitz.com
Design Principal:
Stanley Saitowitz
Project Architect:
John Winder
Project Manager:
Michael Luke

Engineer(s)
Structural:
Watry Design Group
Mechanical:
ACCO
Electrical:
SASCO
Plumbing:
J.W. McClenahan
Fire Sprinkler:
R.L. Hardcastle Company

Consultant(s)
Civil:
Telemon Engineering
Acoustic:
Charles M. Salter Associates Inc.

Contractor(s)
Pankow Builders

Photographer(s)
Tim Griffith Photographer
www.timgriffith.com

Mod Set: From Transience to Permanence , New Orleans, LA
workshop/apd

Images Provided by workshop/apd

ARCHITECTURE AND DISASTER: When disaster strikes, it is visualized through its registration on the architectural surface. The distortion and fragmentation of these surfaces are embedded with the history of the attack and, through media dissemination, become the new reality of place. “The crisis,” writes Peter Eisenman, “between reality and its mediation is related to the difference between being there . . . and witnessing it, thousands of miles removed, on a video monitor . . . . Being there has always been the domain of architecture.” These images, however, cannot be forgotten and they will forever change the lens through which place is viewed.
The events of September 11th saw man’s conceptual attack on Western ideology through a physical attack on its embodiment in architecture, and the after-effects of Hurricane Katrina witnessed a natural attack on architecture and urbanism unparalleled in scale in our history. Once the dust settles, however, architecture is again brought to the fore as a tool that embodies rejuvenation and progress, and its successful execution will eventually start to fade the horrifying memories of the disaster. In our proposal, we use this lens constructively to visualize an argument about change and adaptation that registers this duality.
MODIFYING THE MODULAR: Our scheme seeks to expand on the conventional New Orleans housing type’s ability to “promote easy replication and the potential for multiple variations”  through the use of contemporary modular construction.
Walter Gropius lamented: “Genuine variety without monotony could have been attainted if we had taken greater interest and influence in the development and design of an ever more comprehensive production of standardized, component building parts which could have been assembled into a wide diversity of housing types. Instead the idea of prefabrication was seized by manufacturing firms who came up with the stifling project of mass producing whole house types instead of component parts only.”
In recent years, however, advances in technology have contributed to significant developments in the fabrication and transportation of modular systems. CNC (computer numerically controlled) technology allows for highly customized components to be manufactured accurately by multiple vendors at a fraction of their original cost and with reduced waste; and, products and materials can flawlessly and efficiently make their way into the assembly process. Furthermore, transportation technologies such as RFID (radio frequency identification device) allow for the precise tracking of all components within the assembly and shipping system such that their integration becomes seamless and dependable. Together, these processes extend the production network with almost infinite possibilities, take advantage of economies of scale, and maintain a high level of quality.
The units can be assembled in multiple configurations and can accommodate almost any site and topological condition. Each can also be specifically customized f or the end user, including not only the preferred size and arrangement of spaces, but the particular interior components as well. 
URBAN INTERFACE: An elevated greenscape connects the proposed riverfront park with the city grid bringing together two zones that were previously separated by industrial yards and train tracks. This landscape provides a pastoral setting for the new neighborhood and promotes pedestrian movement through the site. The waterfront is a valuable resource and the approach to its rehabilitation needs to be comprehensive. Our goal is to use innovative and remarkable architecture to connect the existing city to its lost waterfront, to enliven and recreate a potentially magnificent public space, and to create a unique and iconic urban waterfront experience.
1. Peter Eisenman, quoted in The State of Architecture at the Beginning of the 21st Century (New York, NY: The Monacelli Press, 2003), 60.;  2. Carrie Bernhard & Scott Bernhard, An Introduction to New Orleans Housing Types (Competition Brief, 2006);  3. Walter Gropius, quoted in Herbert Gilbert, The Dream of the Factory-Made House: Walter Gropius and Konrad Wachsmann (Cambridge, Mass.: Press, 1984), 318.

Owner
N/A

Architect
workshop/apd
www.workshopapd.com
Principal:
Matthew Berman
Principal:
Andrew Kotchen
Project Team:
Stephan Thimme , Andrew Hart, Zachary Helmers, Matthew Miller, Steven W. Thrasher

Additional rendering work by studio2A
www.studio2a.net

Gardner 1050, Los Angeles, CA
LOHA

Lawrence Anderson Photography

Los Angeles’ current boom in multi-unit housing has brought with it a new type of client.  This client, within parameters, is focused on developing housing for a specific market segment interested in innovative design. The Gardner 1050 housing project is a result of a series of studies into how various housing typologies could be re-invigorated to create new opportunities for living within the extremely tight economic and special parameters of the speculative housing market.
The Gardner 1050 project is a development of 10 architecturally significant housing units located at 1050 North Gardner Street in the City of West Hollywood.  The project’s location just south of Santa Monica Boulevard creates a unique opportunity to add to the burgeoning urbanism of the eastern section of West Hollywood.  As a model of courtyard housing development, the project utilizes a variety of design strategies to elevate it above the more mundane infill developments typical of speculative housing.
The primary materials for the project consist of a painted cement board cladding system in four foot wide panels, a system of horizontal cedar wood slats, translucent channel glass panels, and painted aluminum window frame projections in three colors.  The horizontal wood slats encompass the entire second floor with wood elements found in strategic areas on the first and third level.  These wood elements help to break up the scale of the project and provide for a balanced palette that integrates the project into a coherent whole.
While significant attention has been focused on the exterior skin of the project and its appearance towards the surrounding neighborhood, the ultimate strength of the project is revealed from inside the void space.  The courtyard strikes a delicate balance between intimate and expansive.  The courtyard landscaping has native drought tolerant species.  Vertical cables of stainless steel creep up to the third level walkways creating the scaffolding for a “hanging garden” to eventually take shape.  This vertical foliage helps to moderate the strong urban quality of the courtyard and, in conjunction with the fountain near the entry, helps to provide a peaceful oasis open to the sky.  This sense of openness is further enhanced by the used of steel gratings for walkways above allowing light to filter down into the courtyard.
As can be seen by the above description, The Gardner 1050 project seeks to raise the level of project quality and will become a benchmark for other developments in the surrounding area.  It’s commitment to high-quality design, spatial innovation, and material refinement will provide West Hollywood with a successful example of how increased housing density can be achieved while at the same time, improving the quality of the surrounding city fabric.

Owner
Habitat Group LA

Architect
LOHA
www.loharchitects.com
Principal in Charge:
Lorcan O’Herlihy
Project Team:
Kevin Southerland, Tracy Smith, Franka Diehnelt

Engineer(s)
Structural:
David H. Lau and Associates
M.E.P.:
VLA Engineering

Consultant(s)
Interior Finishes:
Josette Flicker
Landscape:
Yael Lir Landscape Architecture

Contractor(s)
Archetype Construction

Photographer(s)
Lawrence Anderson Photography
www.lawrenceanderson.net

Loloma 5, Scottsdale, Arizona
Will Bruder Architects, LTD

Bill Timmerman Photographer

The architecture of Loloma 5 is a thoughtful and sophisticated acknowledgement of the traditional and modern roots of its Old Town Scottsdale context—a place with pride in its false-front, covered boardwalk, and "old west" friendly downtown image.  The project creates a live/work environment in the heart of Scottsdale that celebrates both the historic and physical context of the place. 
Approached from its west face along Marshall Way, clients and friends of the Loloma community are welcomed by a small natural desert garden.  The project emerges from the plane of the land by a first level architectural plinth of sandblasted random coursed rose/gray concrete masonry units. Above the block the west façade serves as a shield against the sun with it random width ribbed gray Rheinzinc cladding and deep recessed narrow vertical windows of varied widths.
Along the south, patios connect in a linear courtyard to create intimate entries for each of the five units.  Above the doors, angled planes project outward, breaking down the verticality and further expressing each individual unit.  These corrugated metal planes seem to fly passed one another, connected only by a long sliver of light from recessed slot windows.  Limiting the intense southern light, each of the corrugated planes is punctured only with a single simple square of glass.
The undulation at the south is mimicked at the north façade where the architecture becomes an accordion with each of the interior spaces folding out to capture dramatic views of Camelback Mountain. Carefully detailed window walls are screened from the sun behind perforated aluminum scrims, while private cantilevered balconies project behind aluminum plate railings.  Parking stalls tuck quietly below each of the balconies, supporting the dramatic energy of the space.  The entire auto court is veiled behind a perforated metal gate and an ocotillo fence. 
The layering of the materials and transparencies creates a street presence at the exterior while maintaining privacy on the interior.  At the ground level, the minimal footprint accommodates an entry foyer and the office space for the unit.  Ascending the narrow stair to the second level, the eye is turned to the long open views to Scottsdale and Camelback Mountain beyond.  This view remains a backdrop for the social functions within the unit as well as from the outdoor balcony.  The sleeping suite at the upper floor also enjoys this same view.  At the south side of the sleeping suite, a large private patio captures views of the nearby Papago Buttes and the open desert sky. 
In scale, proportion, finely articulated details, massing, and materially, Loloma 5 draws carefully from its local context and environment, carving out a unique place between the history and future of Scottsdale, for comfortable and sustainable urban desert living.

Owner
Context Development, LLC

Architect
Will Bruder Architects, LTD
www.willbruder.com
Lead Design:
Will Bruder
Project Manager:
Jeff Densic
project team:
Rob Gaspard, Joe Herzog, Ben Nesbeitt, Dominique Price

Engineer(s)
Structural: 
Rudow & Berry, Inc.
Mechanical: 
Otterbein Engineering
Electrical: 
Associated Engineering Inc.
Civil:
HPTO
 
Consultant(s)
Landscape:
Burnette Winters

Contractor(s)
Preferred Building Systems, Inc.

Photographer(s)
Bill Timmerman
Timmerman Photography Inc.

Intergenerational Learning Center, Chicago, Illinois
Office da

Images Provided by Office da

This proposal for the Intergenerational Learning Center seeks to identify architectural opportunities from within the given requirements: its budgetary constraints, zoning guidelines, and code restrictions. It uses these criteria both as a mechanism for invention as well as a basis for practical implementation.  From the urbanistic perspective, we have attempted to weave the project into the site, while also addressing the appropriate scales of Michigan Avenue and 104th Street. The residential grain of 104th Street is extended on the east-west axis, while the larger scale is reserved for the north-south axis of Michigan Avenue, where the public program may enjoy a more civic presence.
We have used this as an opportunity to develop a project that operates between architecture and landscape, at once punctuating the scheme with courtyards –providing its residents and visitors with both public and private outdoor spaces — while also extending the landscape over the roofs, underlining the potentials of an architecture of sustainability.  The principles of Universal Design have been adopted to create an architecture of accessibility, flexibility, marketability, and adaptability, making the scheme useful for people of varied abilities and preferences. Moreover, tenets of Universal Design have not simply been adopted as a technocratic punch-list of requirements, but rather the scheme thrives on the manner in which both the housing and the public programs have implemented the seven principles of Universal Design as a vehicle for spatial and typological innovation.  The Senior Satellite Center and Head Start Facility are designed to foster social interaction between the two programs while maintaining the necessary autonomy and security needed for the smooth functioning of their individual operations. Designed as a double helical ramp (a spiral), the two programs intertwine, revealing views of each other and creating overlapping shared spaces for the two generations. The principle of accessibility –materialized as the ramp—becomes the architectural mechanism for vertical circulation, visual connection, spatial separation, and social interaction, while cultivating a culture of exercise and health in a building about movement and social engagement.

Owner
NA

Architect
Office da
www.officeda.com
Nader Tehrani
Monica Ponce de Leon
Project Team:
Scott Ewart, Katja Gischas, Cynthia Gunadi, William O'Brien, Sean Baccei, Tali Bucher, Lisa Huang , Krists Karklins , Miks Karklins , Kazuyo Oda , Penn Ruderman

Engineer(s)
SGH Design + Consulting Engineers
www.sgh.com

Consultant(s)
Green Design:
Buro Happold  

Photographer(s)
Nader Tehrani

GW 497, New York, NY
Archi-tectonics

Floto & Warner Photography

SITE: A former six-story warehouse, located on the edge of Soho, NYC is renovated with a new 'smart loft' building of 11 stories wrapping up and over it.  The once dilapidated urban condition of abandoned warehouses will be reinvigorated with the insertion of galleries, restaurants and modern living.
CONCEPT/CREASE: The 77,000 SF Greenwich building has as its main feature a fully custom and innovative glass curtain wall and a light suspended waterfall of insulated bent glass panels - the first of its kind. Herbert Muschamp of the New York Times writes: "Dubbeldam's folds are philosophically as well as visually grounded....[She] crystallizes urban complexity within the discrete architectural object."
The integration of the existing building with the new 11 story steel and glass structure instigated a mediation between past and present.  In the narrow crease rising between the two structures is a set of cantilevering balconies which juxtaposes and differentiates between the old and new, urban and private, thus inserting an interactive space into an otherwise neutral streetscape. The NYC building code is here re-interpreted; the horizontal plane of traditional urban fabrics is questioned by the insertion of a diagonal surface that bifurcates the facade plane.  Integrating strict building setback codes into the new folded vertical landscape of the glass facade. The new building's innovative angled facade has been custom-designed and its thin steel verticals separate from a suspended structure of insulated glass planes and horizontal aluminum fins; floating, folding horizontal bands replace the static grid. The crease as mediation and glass inflections as spatial device allow for slippage between interior urbanism and urban privacy.
The building’s 25 loft apartments are an open loft plan with all amenities but no interior divisions. The building's structure is a light steel frame with exposed concrete floors. The exterior walls, other than the glass wall, are shot-blast gray concrete block walls with Norwegian aluminum and hardwood windows.  All walls are double insulated to create a comfortable living environment with low energy-use.  The large modern open-plan lofts offer an abundance of exterior space, also balconies and roof terraces are situated on both west and east facades.  Residents can enjoy sunsets over the Hudson River from the comfort of their living space.  A central core contains vertical transportation and utilities, tying together the hybrid structure in an efficient manner, bringing nature into the city.  Each loft has been wired for electronic communication, satellite TV and a variation of heating and cooling systems. At the ground floor the glass facade folds out to form a luxurious entry area to lobby, retail and art gallery, accessible by a concrete ramp and stair with a concrete terrazzo finish, which fosters a more re-active streetscape and eases the transition of a former industrial area into an integrated residential neighborhood.

Owner
Take One, LLC

Architect
Archi-tectonics
www.archi-tectonics.com
Principal:
Winka Dubbeldam
Team leader:
Ana Sotrel
Project Team:
Michael Hundsnurscher, Nicola Bauman, Amy Farina, Ana Zatezalo, Deborah Kully, Stacey Mariash, Ty Tikari, Leo Yung, Beatrice Witzgall, Tanja Bitzer

Architect of Record
David Hotson Architect

Engineer(s)
Structural:
Buro Happold Consulting Engineers
Mechanical:
Szakal Consulting Engineers, P.C.

Consultant(s)
Acoustic:
Shen Milsom & Wilke
www.smwinc.com
Elevator:
Barker Mohandes, LLC
Curtain Wall:
Israel Berger & Associates
Expeditor:
Micheal Zenreich Architect,P.C.

Contractor(s)
York Hunter Construction Services

Photographer(s)
Floto & Warner Photography
www.flotowarner.com

On Grape, San Diego, CA 
Sebastian Mariscal Studio

Roberto Zeballos, Erin Moon and Dominique Houriet Photographers

The urban development of cities at an extremely accelerated pace and within the dominating context of full block projects makes Urban Infill Projects like “On Grape” highly important to the underlying character of the city.
Small urban infill projects bring diversity, contrast, and scale to our city environments. As micro-developers, designers, and builders, the challenge began with the small lot, busy streets, zero setbacks from property lines, and a complete lack of space for construction storage and scaffolding. By combining these roles, the development and construction are integrated into the architecture.
The initial decision to subdivide the land into 2 parcels produced two single-family residences with the inherent urban quality of narrow, linear space. As Architects, the main goal is to maintain an interior-exterior connection while creating a spacious and quiet living environment in the city. This was achieved by constructing continuous spaces from property line to property line and opening the interior void volume to the sky. 
Within the urban context, the building exists as dual volumes separated by an interior courtyard of bamboo and light. The wood frame structure receives floating exterior skins of stone and corten steel. The interior and exterior skins are separated by an internal air chamber, providing thermal and acoustic insulation.
Spatially, the residences offer a quiet respite within the city core. Materially, the natural stone and wood accentuate the diverse urban fabric of San Diego.  

Owner
Withheld

Architect
Sebastian Mariscal Studio
www.sebastianmariscal.com
Project Team:
Sebastian Mariscal  D,ominique Houriet,  Leonardo Perez,  Emilie Broderick,  Jeff Svitak, Erin Moon 

Engineer(s)
Structural:
Mobayed Consulting Group

Contractor(s)
Sebastian Mariscal Studio
Concrete Countertops:
Pourfolio
www.pourfolio.com

Photographer(s):
Roberto Zeballos Photography
Dominique Houriet
Erin Moon

CamelBackShotGunSpongeGarden, New Orleans, Louisiana
Anderson Anderson Architecture

Images Provided by Anderson Anderson Arch.

This high-density urban housing landscape is designed as an environmental sponge absorbing climatic impacts and slowly filtering the captured water and energy back into their natural and human eco-systems as useful nutrients. The site itself reaches out through the park to create an alluvial delta comb recapturing passing river sediment to slowly replenish and build the high ground and its natural waterfront life, much as the natural delta, bayous and barrier islands originally functioned. These sponge-like delta fingers then reach back and up to form the housing blocks themselves, which in turn also function as absorptive, living tissue in the larger landscape.
The project will be fabricated almost entirely off-site using a hybrid, steel-frame/structural insulated panel system using no internal cavities and no water absorptive construction materials. The individual building units will be efficiently manufactured in three, road-legal halves per typical two or three-bedroom flat and then stacked by crane as complete housing units on top of prefabricated, ground level retail and service cores built of water and termite resistant composite concrete panels. Earth excavated for building foundations is redistributed as water absorptive landscape berms creating a unified outdoor common space flowing upward from the river bank, through the public park and integrating into the geometry and eco-system of the individual house blocks. 
Dwelling units share a common geometric order defined by the local urban street grid and local housing typologies “shotgun” and  “shotgun with camelback” merging with the delta webbing of earth and water at the riverbank. Within the regular grid, the slightly sliding, rising and falling house positions create a syncopated rhythm, allowing the gardens and open space to shrink and swell across the roofs, creating variously sized and shaded outdoor gardening, dining and play areas.  Community vegetable gardens, picnic and play areas weave as continuously linked walkways and platforms winding among the buildings above the parking level below, both defining internal community areas and flowing outward to the street edge as densely vegetated corridors of air and skylight, welcoming integration with the life and spatial massing of the larger neighborhood. The roof gardens and the shutter wall system all contain living vegetation. These living surface capture, filter, and slowly release rain water, acting as a sponge to absorb storm impacts. Building surfaces without vegetation contain photovoltaic energy generating panels

Owner
NA

Architect
Anderson Anderson Architecture
www.andersonanderson.com
Project Team:
Mark Anderson, Peter Anderson, Aaron Brumo, Alan Ownings, Brent Sumida, Dennis Oshiro, Phoebe Schenker, Rita Sio, Ji Young Chung

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